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ANGLO-AMERICAN 
MEMORIES 


BY   K^ 
GEORGE  Wr  SMALLEY,  M.A. 

y  ■ 
AUTHOR    OF  "STUDIES   OF   MEN," 
"LIFE   OF   SIR   SYDNEY   WATERLOW,"    ETC. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW   YORK  AND  LONDON 

^be   ItnicfterbocTter  iprees 

1911 


Copyright,  1911 

BY 

GEORGE  W.   SMALLEY 


Tlbe  IRnlcfcetboifeer  g>i;e3e.  tR«w  S?ot* 


PREFACE 

HTHESE  Memories  were  written  in  the  first 
*  instance  for  Americans  and  have  appeared 
week  by  week  each  Sunday  in  the  New  York 
Tribune.  This  may  be  evident  enough  from  the 
way  in  which  some  subjects  are  dealt  with.  But 
they  must  stand  in  great  part  as  they  were  written 
since  the  book  is  published  both  in  London  and 
New  York. 

They  are,  in  some  slight  degree,  autobiographical, 
but  only  so  far  as  is  necessary  to  explain  my  rela- 
tions with  those  men  and  women  of  whom  I  have 
written,  or  with  the  great  journal,  the  New  York 
Tribune,  I  so  long  served.  But  they  are  mainly 
concerned  with  men  of  exceptional  mark  and  posi- 
tion in  America  and  Europe  whom  I  have  met, 
and  with  events  of  which  I  had  some  personal 
knowledge.  There  is  no  attempt  at  a  consecutive 
story. 

London,  December,  1910. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  I 

New  England  in  1850 — Daniel  Webster     .         .         i 

CHAPTER  II 

Massachusetts    Puritanism — The    Yale   Class 

OF  1853 II 

CHAPTER  III 

Yale  Professors — Harvard  Law  School     .         .      20 

CHAPTER  IV 

How  Massachusetts  in   1854  Surrendered  the 

Fugitive  Slave  Anthony  Burns    ...       29 

CHAPTER  V 

The  American  Defoe,  Richard  Henry  Dana,  Jr  .       41 

CHAPTER  VI 

A  Visit  to  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson        .         .         -51 

CHAPTER  VII 

Emerson  in  England — English  Traits — Emerson 

AND  Matthew  Arnold  .....       62 

CHAPTER  VIII 

A  Group  of  Boston  Lawyers — Mr.  Olney  and 

Venezuela    .......       74 


vi  Contents 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  IX 

Wendell  Phillips        ......      84 

CHAPTER  X 

Wendell  Phillips  and  the  Boston  Mobs     .         .      95 

CHAPTER  XI 

Wendell  Phillips — Governor  Andrew — Phillips's 

Conversion  .......     104 

CHAPTER  XII 

William  Lloyd  Garrison — A  Critical  View         .113 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Charles  Sumner — A  Private  View      .         .         .     121 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Experiences    as   Journalist    during    the    Civil 

War 126 

CHAPTER  XV 

Civil   War  —  General    McCellan  —  General 

Hooker         .......     137 

CHAPTER  XVI 

Civil  War — Personal  Incidents  at  Antietam        .     145 

CHAPTER  XVII 
A  Fragment  of  Unwritten  Military  History      .     153 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

The  New  York  Draft  Riots  in  1863 — Notes  on 

Journalism  .......     161 


Contents  vii 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XIX 

How  THE  Prussians  after  Sadowa  Came  Home  to 

Berlin.         .......     170 

CHAPTER  XX 

A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  in  1866  .         .178 

CHAPTER  XXI 

American  Diplomacy  in  England         ,         .         .     194 

CHAPTER  XXII 
Two  Unaccredited  Ambassadors  .         .         .212 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

Some  Account  of  a  Revolution  in  International 

Journalism 220 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

Holt  White's  Story  of  Sedan  and  How  it  Reached 

the  "  New  York  Tribune  "   .         .         .         .     235 

CHAPTER  XXV 
Great  Examples  of  War  Correspondence  .         .     243 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

A  Parenthesis    .         .  .         .         .251 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

"CrviL  War?" — Incidents  in  the  'Eighties — Sir 

George  Trevelyan — Lord  Barrymore  .         .     253 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 
Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  and  the  Alaska  Boundary    260 


viii  Contents 

PAGB 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

Annexing  Canada — Lady  Aberdeen — Lady  Minto    277 

CHAPTER  XXX 

Two  Governors-General,  Lord  Minto  and  Lord 

Grey 284 

CHAPTER  XXXI 

Lord  Kitchener — Personal  Traits  and  Incidents   292 

CHAPTER  XXXII 

Sir  George  Lewis — King's  Solicitor  and  Friend 

— A  Social  Force  .         .         .         .         .301 

CHAPTER  XXXIII 

Mr.  Mills — A  Personal  Appreciation  and  a  Few 

Anecdotes   .  ......     309 

CHAPTER  XXXIV 

Lord  Randolph  Churchill — Being  Mostly  Per- 
sonal Impressions         .         .         .         .         .317 

CHAPTER  XXXV 
Lord  Glenesk  and  "The  Morning  Post"     ,         .     334 

CHAPTER  XXXVI 

Queen  Victoria  at  Balmoral — King  Edward  at 
DuNROBiN — Admiral  Sir  Hedworth  Lambton 
— Other  Anecdotes 345 

CHAPTER  XXXVII 
Famous  Englishmen  Not  in  Politics   .         .         -352 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

Lord  St.  Helier — American  and  English  Methods 

— Mr.  Benjamin    ......     364 


Contents  ix 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XXXIX 

Mrs.  Jeune,  Lady  Jeune,  and  Lady  St.  Helier  .  371 

CHAPTER  XL 

Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Russell  and  the  "Salon" 

IN  England  .         .         .         .         .         .         .     379 

CHAPTER  XLI 

The      Archbishop      of      Canterbury  —  Queen 

Alexandra  ...         .        ,.         .         .     389 

CHAPTER  XLII  . 

A  Scottish  Legend      .         .         .         .        .         .     395 

CHAPTER  XLIII 

A  Personal  Reminiscence  of  the  Late  Emperor 

Frederick    .         .         .         .         .         .         .     402 

CHAPTER  XLIV 

I.    Edward  the  Seventh  as  Prince  of  Wales — 

Personal  Incidents      .....     409 

IL    Prince  of  Wales  and  King  of    England — 

The  Personal  Side 416 

IIL    As  King — Some  Personal  and  Social    In- 
cidents and  Impressions      .         .         .         .     423 

Index w,.         .         .         .     431 


ANGLO-AMERICAN  MEMORIES 


ANGLO-AMERICAN 
MEMORIES 


CHAPTER  I 

NEW  ENGLAND  IN  185O — DANIEL  WEBSTER 

/\yiY  memories  begin  with  that  New  England 
*  '  *  of  fifty  years  ago  and  more  which  has  pretty 
well  passed  out  of  existence.  I  knew  all  or  nearly 
all  the  men  who  made  that  generation  famous: 
Everett;  Charles  Sumner,  "the  whitest  soul  I 
ever  knew,"  said  Emerson;  Wendell  Phillips; 
Garrison;  Andrew,  the  greatest  of  the  great  "War 
Governors";  Emerson;  Wendell  Holmes ;  Theodore 
Parker;  Lowell,  and  many  more;  and  of  all  I  shall 
presently  have  something  to  say.  Earlier  than 
any  of  them  comes  the  Reverend  Dr.  Emmons,  a 
forgotten  name,  for  a  long  time  pastor  of  the  little 
church  in  the  little  town  of  Franklin,  where  I  was 
bom,  in  Norfolk  County,  in  that  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts on  which  Daniel  Webster  pronounced  the 
only  possible  eulogy:  "I  shall  enter  on  no  encomi- 
um upon  Massachusetts;  she  needs  none.  There 
she   is.     Behold   her,   and   judge  for  yourselves. 


2  Anglo-American  Memories 

There  is  her  history;  the  world  knows  it  by  heart." 
Whether  the  world  knows  it  by  heart  may  be  a 
question.  We  are  perhaps  a  little  too  apt  to 
assume  that  things  American  loom  as  large  to 
other  eyes  as  to  our  own.  But  whether  the  world 
knows  Massachusetts  by  heart  or  not,  we  know 
it;  and  the  rest  does  not  much  matter.  Every 
son  of  hers  will  add  for  himself  "God  bless  her." 

Dr.  Emmons  was  of  the  austere  school  of  Cal- 
vinists,  descending  more  directly  from  the  still 
more  austere  school  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  I 
cannot  have  been  more  than  three  or  four  years 
old  when  I  last  saw  him,  but  I  see  him  still:  tall, 
slight,  bent,  wasted;  long  grey  locks  floating 
loosely  about  his  head;  his  face  the  face  of  an 
ascetic,  yet  kindly,  and  I  still  feel  the  gentle  touch 
of  the  old  man's  hand  as  it  rested  on  my  baby 
head.  And  I  see  the  imprint  of  his  venerable 
feet,  which  it  was  his  habit  to  rest  on  the  painted 
w^ainscotting  of  his  small,  scantily  furnished  study. 

My  father  was  first  his  colleague,  then  his 
successor;  then  was  called,  as  the  phrase  is,  to 
the  Second  Congregational  Church  in  Worcester; 
whence  he  passed  many  years  later  to  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church  in  Troy,  N.  Y.,  where  he 
died.  Worcester  was  at  that  time — 1840  to 
i860 — a  charming  example  of  the  thriving  New 
England  village  which  had  grown  to  be  a  town 
with  pleasant,  quiet  streets — even  Main  Street, 
its  chief  thoroughfare,  was  quiet — and  pleasant 
houses  of  colonial  and  later  styles  standing  in 
pleasant  grounds.     A  beautiful  simplicity  of  life 


New  England  in  1850  3 

prevailed,  and  a  high  standard;  without  pretence, 
not  without  dignity.  The  town  had  given,  and 
was  to  give,  not  a  few  Governors  to  the  Common- 
wealth: Governor  Lincoln,  Governor  Davis  ("Hon- 
est John"),  another  Lieutenant-Governor  Davis, 
and  two  Governor  Washbums :  to  the  first  of  whom 
we  lived  next  door  in  Pearl  Street;  in  the  shadow 
of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  which  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Huntington,  translated  afterward  to  Grace  Church 
in  New  York  and  widely  known,  was  rector. 
Later  I  read  law  for  a  year  in  the  office  of  Governor 
Washburn's  partner:  afterward  that  Senator  Hoar 
who  in  learning  and  capacity  stood  second  to  few 
in  Washington,  and  in  character  to  none. 

Twenty  years  ago,  my  mind  filled  with  these 
images  of  almost  rural  charm,  I  went  back  on  a 
visit  to  Worcester.  It  had  grown  to  be  a  city  of 
near  one  hundred  thousand  people,  and  unrecog- 
nizable. The  charm  had  vanished.  The  roar 
of  traffic  was  to  be  heard  everywhere;  surface 
cars  raced  through  the  streets;  blazing  gilt  signs 
with  strange  and  often  foreign  names  emblazoned 
on  them  in  gigantic  letters,  plastering  and  half 
hiding  the  fronts  of  the  buildings;  mostly  new. 
It  might  have  been  a  section  of  New  York — at 
any  rate  it  was  given  over  to  the  fierce  competi- 
tion of  business.  Of  the  tranquillity  which  once 
brooded  over  the  town,  no  trace  was  left.  I  sup- 
pose it  all  means  prosperity,  in  which  I  rejoice; 
but  it  was  not  my  Worcester. 

If  it  be  still,  as  we  used  affectionately  to  call  it, 
the  Heart  of  the  Commonwealth,  then  I  suppose 


4  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  Commonwealth  also  has  changed;  for  better 
or  for  worse,  according  to  your  point  of  view. 
Boston  certainly  has  changed,  and  as  certainly 
for  the  worse.  Where  is  the  old  Boston  we  all 
loved?  What  has  become  of  those  historic  streets 
which  the  great  men  of  more  than  one  great 
generation  trod?  Where  is  the  dignity,  the 
quaint,  old-fashioned  beauty,  the  stamp  of  dis- 
tinction, the  leisureliness  of  life,  the  atmosphere 
which  Winthrop  and  Endicott,  John  Hancock 
and  Otis,  Everett  and  Andrew,  once  breathed? 
The  only  Boston  they  knew  is  to-day  a  city  of 
tumult  and  uproar,  amid  which  the  State  House 
and  the  Common  and  the  Old  South  Church  and 
State  Street  itself  seem  anachronisms  and  untimely 
survivals  of  other  and  holier  days. 

In  the  old  Worcester — and,  for  aught  I  know, 
in  the  new — ^far  up  on  Elm  Street  as  it  climbs  the 
hill  and  pushes  toward  the  open  country,  stood 
Governor  Lincoln's  house — square,  white,  well 
back  from  the  street ;  a  fence  enclosing  the  broad 
lawn,  steps  and  an  arched  iron  gateway  in  the 
centre.  To  me  ever  memorable  because  there 
I  first  saw  Daniel  Webster.  He  had  come  to 
Worcester  campaigning  for  Taylor,  whose  nomina- 
tion for  the  Presidency,  over  his  own  head,  he  had 
at  first  declared  "unfit  to  be  made."  He  arrived 
in  the  dusk  of  evening,  and  drove  in  Governor 
Lincoln's  open  landau  to  the  house.  A  multi- 
tude waiting  to  greet  him  filled  the  street. 
Webster  descended  from  the  carriage,  went  up 
the  three  steps  from  the  sidewalk  to  the  gateway. 


Daniel  Webster  5 

turned,  and  faced  the  cheering  crowd.  The  rays 
from  the  Hghted  lantern  in  the  centre  of  the  arch 
fell  full  on  his  face.  I  do  not  remember  whether 
I  thought  then,  but  I  have  often  thought  since 
of  what  Emerson  said: 

"If  Webster  were  revealed  to  me  on  a  dark 
night  by  a  flash  of  lightning,  I  should  be  at  a  loss 
to  know  whether  an  angel  or  a  demon  stood  before 
me." 

That  night,  at  any  rate,  there  was  a  touch  of  the 
demon.  His  advocacy  of  the  successful  soldier 
was  an  act  of  renunciation.  The  leadership  of  the 
Whig  party  belonged  to  him  and  not  to  Zachary 
Taylor;  or  if  not  to  Webster,  it  belonged  to  Henry 
Clay.  He  had  not  forgiven  his  successful  soldier- 
rival.  He  never  forgave  him.  Nor  could  he  all 
at  once  put  to  sleep  for  another  four  years  his 
honoiirable  ambition.  His  eyes  blazed  with  a 
fire  not  all  celestial.  The  grave  aspect  of  the 
man  and  grave  courtesy  of  his  greeting  to  the 
people  before  him  only  half  hid  the  resentment 
which  fed  their  inward  fire.  But  he  stood  a 
pillar  of  state — 

,  .  .  deep  on  his  front  engraven 
Deliberation  sat  and  public  care. 

A  colossal  figure.  We  boys  in  Massachusetts 
were  all  brought  up  to  worship  Webster,  and 
worship  him  we  did;  till  the  Fall  came,  and  the 
seventh  of  March  speech  turned  reverence  into 
righteous  wrath. 


6  Ancrlo-American  Memories 

There  was  a  certain  likeness  in  feature  between 
Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Gladstone.  The  eyes  in 
both  were  dark,  deep  set,  and  wide  apart,  beneath 
heavily  overhanging  brows.  In  both  the  flame 
was  volcanic.  The  features  in  both  were  chiselled 
strongly,  the  lines  clear  cut,  the  contour  of  the 
face  and  the  air  of  command  much  the  same  in 
the  great  American  and  the  great  Englishman; 
but  Mr.  Gladstone  had,  before  the  political  dis- 
asters of  his  later  years  had  angered  him,  a  be- 
nignity which  Webster  lacked.  In  stature,  in 
massiveness  of  frame,  in  presence,  in  that  power 
which  springs  from  repose  and  from  the  forces  of 
reserve,  there  was  no  comparison.  Webster  had 
all  this,  and  Gladstone  had  not.  I  have  be- 
fore me  as  I  write  a  private  photograph  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  from  the  camera  of  a  lady  who  had 
something  more  than  technical  skill,  who  had  a 
sympathetic  insight  into  character  and  an  art- 
sense.  Among  the  hundreds  of  photographs  of  the 
Tory-Liberal,  the  Protectionist-Free  Trader,  the  Im- 
perialist-Home Ruler,  this  is  the  finest  and  truest 
I  have  seen.  But  it  is  one  which  brings  out  his 
unlikeness  to  Webster  far  more  clearly  than  those 
resemblances  I  have  noted.  If  those  resemblances 
have  not  before  been  remarked,  there  are,  I 
imagine,  few  men  living  who  have  seen  both  men 
in  the  full  splendour  of  their  heroic  mould. 

The  records  of  those  later  days  are  fuU  not  only 
of  admiring  friendship  for  Webster,  but  also  of 
that  bitterness  which  his  apostasy — for  so  we 
thought  it — ^begot.     Even  friends  turned  against 


Daniel  Webster  7 

him  after  his  support  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 
As  for  his  enemies,  there  was  no  limit  to  their 
language.  A  single  unpublished  incident  will 
show  what  the  feeling  was.  At  a  meeting  of  the 
Abolitionists  in  the  Boston  Melodeon,  Charles 
Lenox  Remond,  a  negro,  in  the  course  of  a  diatribe 
against  the  white  race,  called  Washington  a 
scoundrel.  Wendell  Phillips,  who  was  on  the 
platform,  intervened: 

"No,  Charles,  don't  say  that.  Don't  call 
Washington  a  scoundrel.  The  great  Virginian 
held  slaves,  but  he  was  a  great  Virginian  still, 
and  a  great  American.  It  is  not  a  fit  word  to  use. 
It  is  not  descriptive. 

"Besides,  if  you  call  Washington  a  scoundrel, 
how  are  you  going  to  describe  Webster.^" 

Besides,  again,  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  wrought 
the  redemption  of  Massachusetts;  and  we  owe 
that  redemption  to  Webster,  indirectly.  It  was 
the  rendition  of  Anthony  Burns,  in  1854,  two 
years  after  Webster's  death,  which  completed 
the  conversion  of  the  Bay  State  from  the  pro- 
slavery  to  the  anti-slavery  faith.  But  what  I 
can  tell  of  the  unwritten  history  of  those  black 
days  must  be  for  another  time. 

Whatever  Webster's  faults,  and  whatever  re- 
sentment he  aroused  in  1850,  he  remained,  and 
will  long  remain,  the  foremost  citizen  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  that  generation.  Go  to  his  opponents 
if  you  want  testimony  for  that.  Ask  Wendell 
Phillips,  and  he  answers  in  one  of  his  finest  sen- 
tences, pouring  scorn  on  the  men  who  took  up, 


8  Anglo-American  Memories 

so  late  as  1861,  Webster's  mission  to  crush  anti- 
slavery  agitation: 

It  was  Webster  who  announced  from  the  steps  of  the 
Revere  House  that  he  would  put  down  this  agitation.  The 
great  statesman,  discredited  and  defeated,  sleeps  at  Marsh- 
field  by  the  solemn  waves  of  the  Atlantic.  Contempsi 
CatilincB  gladios;  non  luos  pertimescam.  The  half -omni- 
potence of  Webster  we  defied;  who  heeds  this  pedlar's 
empty  speech? 

Ask  Theodore  Parker,  who  delivered  in  the 
Music  Hall  of  Boston  a  discourse  on  Webster's 
death;  half -invective,  more  than  half -panegyric, 
whether  he  would  or  no.  It  was,  I  think,  Parker 
who  said  of  him  that  four  American  masterpieces 
in  four  different  kinds  were  Webster's.  The 
ablest  argument  ever  heard  in  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  that  in  the  Dart- 
mouth College  case,  was  his.  His  was  the  noblest 
platform  speech  of  his  time  at  the  dedication  of 
Bunker  Hill  Monument.  His  the  most  persuasive 
address  to  an  American  jury,  in  the  White  murder 
case  at  Salem,  with  its  tremendous  epigram, 
"There  is  no  refuge  from  confession  but  suicide; 
and  suicide  is  confession."  His,  finally,  the 
profoundest  exposition  of  constitutional  law,  the 
reply  to  Hayne  in  the  United  States  Senate.  All 
these  were  Webster's,  and  to  Webster  alone  could 
any  such  tribute  be  paid. 

When  I  heard  Webster  in  Faneuil  Hall,  where 
he  was  perhaps  at  his  best  and  most  at  home,  it 
seemed  to  me  it  mattered  little  what  he  said. 


Daniel  Webster  9 

The  authority  of  the  man  was  what  told.  Before 
he  had  uttered  a  word  he  had  possession  of  the 
minds  of  the  three  thousand  people  who  stood — 
for  we  were  all  standing — waiting  for  the  words 
we  knew  would  be  words  of  wisdom. 

Twice  I  have  seen  a  similar  effect  by  very 
different  artists.  Once  by  Rachel  at  the  Boston 
Theatre,  as  Camille  in  Corneille's  Horace,  when 
the  mere  apparition  of  that  white-robed  figure 
and  the  first  rays  from  those  deep-burning  eyes 
laid  a  spell  on  the  audience.  Not  once,  but  many 
times,  by  Aimee  Desclee,  at  the  Princess's  Theatre 
in  London  and  at  the  Gymnase  in  Paris.  Of  her 
I  shall  have  something  to  say  by  and  by,  but  I 
name  her  now  because  she  had  that  rarest  of 
gifts,  the  power  of  gathering  an  audience  into 
her  two  small  hands  while  still,  silent  and  motion- 
less; and  thereafter  never  letting  them  go.  In 
her  it  was  perhaps  a  magnetic  force  of  emotion, 
for  she  was  the  greatest  of  emotional  actresses. 
In  Webster  it  was  the  domination  of  an  irresistible 
personality,  with  an  unmatched  intellectual  su- 
premacy, and  the  prestige  of  an  unequalled  career. 
Whatever  it  was,  we  all  bowed  to  it.  We  were 
there  to  take  orders  from  him,  to  thinkhis  thoughts, 
to  do  as  he  would  have  us.  He  might  have  talked 
nonsense.  We  should  not  have  thought  it  was 
nonsense.  He  might  have  reversed  his  policy. 
We  should  have  held  him  consistent.  We  should 
have  followed  him,  believing  the  road  was  the 
same  we  had  always  travelled  together.  He  was 
still  the  man  whom   Massachusetts  delighted  to 


10  Anglo-American  Memories 

honour.     The  forces  of  the  whole  State  were  at 
his  disposal,  as  they  had  been  for  thirty  years. 

He  stood  upon  the  platform  an  august,  a  ma- 
jestic figure,  from  which  the  blue  coat  and  buff 
trousers  and  the  glitter  of  gilt  buttons  did  not 
detract.  Once,  and  only  once,  have  I  found 
myself  under  the  sway  of  an  individuality  more 
masterful  than  Webster's,  much  later  in  life,  so 
that  the  test  was  more  decisive;  but  it  was  not 
Mr.  Gladstone's. 


CHAPTER  II 

MASSACHUSETTS  PURITANISM — THE  YALE  CLASS 
OF  1853 

MASSACHUSETTS  was  in  those  days,  that  is, 
in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  in  the 
bonds  of  that  inherited  and  unrelaxing  Puritanism 
which  was  her  strength  and  her  weakness.  Darwin 
had  not  spoken.  The  effort  to  reconcile  science 
and  theology — not  religion — had  only  begun. 
Agassiz's  was  still  the  voice  most  trusted,  and  he, 
with  all  his  scientific  genius  and  knowledge,  was 
on  the  side  of  the  angels.  The  demand  for  evi- 
dence had  not  yet  overcome  the  assertion  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  in  matters  of  belief.  The 
spiritual  ascendancy  of  the  New  England  minister 
was  little,  if  at  all,  impaired,  and  his  political 
ascendancy  had  still  to  be  reckoned  with.  There 
were,  I  suppose,  no  two  places  in  the  world  so 
much  under  the  dominion  of  one  form  or  another 
of  priestly  rule  as  the  six  New  England  States  and 
Scotland;  and  therefore  no  two  between  which 
spiritual  and  political  resemblances  were  so  close. 
There  were,  however,  influences  which  while 
less  visible  were  sometimes  more  potent.  The 
pastor  was  the  figurehead  of  a  Congregational 
Church;  or,  to  use  Phillips's  simile,  he  was  the 


12  Anelo-American  Memories 


'& 


walking-beam  which  the  observer  might  think 
the  propelHng  force  of  the  steamboat.  "But," 
said  PhilHps,  "there  's  always  a  fanatic  down  in 
the  hold,  feeding  the  fires."  The  fanatics  were 
the  deacons.  They  often  had  in  them  the  spirit 
of  persecution.  They  encroached  upon,  and  some- 
times usurped,  the  rightful  authority  of  the  true 
head  of  the  Church,  the  pastor,  in  matters  of 
faith  and  matters  of  conduct  alike.  They  con- 
stituted themselves  the  guardians  of  the  morals 
of  the  flock,  the  pastor  and  his  family  included. 
My  father  was  a  man  whose  mind  ran  strongly 
toward  Liberalism.  He  had  nothing  of  the  in- 
quisitor about  him.  But  his  deacons  were  pos- 
sessed with  a  school-mastering  demon.  They 
had  the  vigilance  of  the  detective  policeman  and 
a  deep  sense  of  responsibility  to  their  Creator 
for  the  behaviour  of  their  fellow-men.  Good 
and  conscientious  citizens  all  of  them,  but  indis- 
posed to  believe  that  men  who  held  other  opinions 
than  theirs  might  also  be  good.  Their  individual 
consciences  were  to  be  the  guide  of  life  to  the  rest 
of  the  world.  If  they  had  not  the  ferocity  of 
Mucklewraith  they  had  his  intolerance.  They 
would  have  made  absence  from  divine  service 
a  statutory  offence,  as  the  earlier  Puritans  did. 
Two  services  each  Sunday,  a  Sunday-school  in 
between,  and  prayer-meetings  on  Wednesdays — 
all  these  must  be  punctually  attended  by  us 
children,  and  were. 

When  a  decision  had  to  be  taken  about  my 
going  to  college,  I  wished  to  be  sent  to  Harvard, 


Massachusetts  Puritanism  13 

as  every  Massachusetts  boy  naturally  would. 
But  Harvard  was  a  Unitarian  college,  and  the 
deacons  persuaded  my  father  that  the  welfare 
of  my  immortal  soul  would  be  imperilled  if  I  was 
taught  Greek  and  Latin  by  professors  who  did 
not  believe  in  a  Trinitarian  God.  This  spirit 
of  theological  partisanship  prevailed  and  I  was 
sent  to  Yale.  At  that  admirable  seat  of  learning 
there  was  no  danger  of  laxity  or  heresy.  The 
strictest  Presbyterianism  was  taught  relentlessly 
and  the  strictest  discipline  enforced.  Chapel 
morning  and  evening,  three  or  perhaps  four  ser- 
vices on  Sunday — in  all  let  us  say  some  eighteen 
separate  compulsory  attendances  on  religious 
exercises  each  week.  Would  it  be  wonder- 
ful if  a  boy  who  had  undergone  all  this  for  four 
years  should  consider  that  he  had  earned  the 
right  to  relaxation  in  after  days? 

None  the  less  willingly  do  I  acknowledge  my 
debt  to  Yale,  a  debt  which  would  have  been 
heavier  had  I  been  more  industrious.  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  University  in  our  time  was  the  Rever- 
end Dr.  Wolseley — learned,  austere,  kindly,  but 
remote.  We  boys  saw  little  of  him  except  on  a 
pedestal  or  in  the  pulpit.  When  he  bade  the 
class  farewell,  he  made  us  a  friendly  little  speech 
and  proposed  a  toast:  "The  Class  of  1853.  I 
drink  their  healths  in  water.  May  their  names 
not  be  writ  in  water. "  Nor  were  they.  Perhaps 
no  class  contained  so  many  members  who  have 
filled  larger  spaces  for  a  longer  time  in  the  public 
eye  and  the  public  press. 


14  Anglo-American  Memories 

There  was  Stedman,  the  poet  and  poet  critic. 
He  left  poems  which  will  live  forever,  but  no  such 
body  of  poetical  achievement  as  he  might  have 
produced  had  not  circumstances  obliged  him  to 
devote  to  business  and  to  editorial  work  abilities 
superior  to  either.  He  is  not  remembered  pre- 
eminently as  a  poet  of  patriotism,  but  the  only 
poem  of  Stedman's  included  in  Emerson's  Par- 
7iassus  is  his  "John  Brown  of  Osawatomie, " 
written — ^was  it  not  for  The  Tribune? — in  Novem- 
ber, 1859,  while  Brown  lay  in  his  Virginian  jail 
waiting  to  be  hanged.  Stedman,  his  genius 
flowering  in  a  prophetic  insight,  warned  them; 
but  his  "Virginians,  don't  do  it"  rang  unavailingly 
through  the  land;  and  his 

.  .  .  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
May  trouble  you  more  than  ever  when  you  've  nailed 
his  coffin  down 

never  reached  the  Virginian  mind  till  Northern 
regiments  sang  their  way  through  Southern  States 
to  the  tune  of  "John  Brown's  Body. "  Stedman's 
range  was  wide.  He  set  perhaps  most  value  on 
his  Lyrics  and  Idylls.  That  was  the  title  he  gave 
to  the  volume  of  poems  published  in  London  in 
1879;  selected  by  himself  for  his  English  readers. 
His  American  friends  will  like  to  be  reminded 
that  the  first  third  of  the  volume  is  given  to 
"American  Lyrics  and  Idylls,"  including  "Old 
Brown,"    and   that   tender   monody   on   Horace 


Yale  Class  of  1853  15 

Greeley  which  no  Tribune  reader  can  have 
forgotten. 

There  was  Charlton  Lewis,  an  Admirable  Crich- 
ton  in  his  versatility,^ — ^if  the  serious  meaning  of 
that  name  has  survived  Mr.  Barrie's  travesty 
of  it  on  the  stage.  We  knew  him  at  Yale  as  a 
mathematician  who  played  with  the  toughest 
problems  proposed  to  us  by  mathematical  tutors 
and  professors;  w^hose  very  names  I  forget.  We 
knew  him  afterward  as  lawyer,  insurance  expert, 
Latin  lexicographer,  journalist,  financier,  and 
editor  of  Harper's  Book  of  Facts,  the  best  of  all 
books  of  facts;  but  now,  or  when  I  last  inquired, 
out  of  print  and  not  easily  procurable.  He  under- 
stood cards  also.  Playing  whist,  which  I  think 
was  forbidden  in  college,  he  dealt  to  his  partner 
and  two  adversaries  the  usual  miscellaneous  hand ; 
and  to  himself,  by  way  of  jest,  all  thirteen  trumps. 
When  the  enemy  remonstrated  Lewis  answered: 
"If  you  will  specify  any  other  order  in  which  it 
is  mathematically  more  probable  that  the  hands 
would  be  distributed,  I  will  admit  that  this  is 
not  the  product  of  chance."  An  answer  to  which 
there  was  no  answer.  He  delighted  in  puzzling 
minds  less  acute  and  less  scientific  than  his  own. 
Few  men  have  had  a  more  serviceable  brain  than 
his,  or  known  better  how  to  use  it;  and  his  power 
of  work  knew  no  limit. 

There  was  Mr.  Justice  Shiras  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court.  There  was  Fred  Davies, 
a  dignitary  of  the  Church — in  whom  professional 
decorum  never  extinguished  a  natural  sense  of 


1 6  Anglo-American  Memories 

fun  and  good-fellowship.  There  was,  and  happily 
still  is,  Andrew  White,  historian,  writer  of  books, 
President  of  Cornell  University,  Ambassador,  and, 
in  a  forgetful  moment,  one  of  President  Cleveland's 
commission  to  determine  the  boundary  line  be- 
tween a  British  colony  and  a  foreign  state;  neither 
of  whom  had  asked  him  to  draw  it.  There  was 
Isaac  Bromley,  one  of  the  world's  jesters  who  make 
life  amusing  to  everybody  but  themselves;  whom 
all  his  colleagues  on  The  Tribune  valued  for 
qualities  which  were  his  own  and  not  ours.  Not 
the  least  of  the  many  eulogies  which  death  brought 
him  was  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  him 
best,  that  his  humour  was  good-humoured. 

The  most  casual  reader  must  have  noticed  how 
various  are  the  talents  and  characters  among  the 
hundred  and  six  graduates  of  1853.  There  are 
many  more.  There  is  Wayne  MacVeagh,  the 
most  delightful  of  companions,  counsel  in  great 
causes  all  his  life,  Attorney-General  of  the  United 
States,  Ambassador  to  Rome,  one  of  the  men  who 
paid  least  respect  to  social  conventionalities,  yet 
in  Washington  a  central  figure  in  society.  But 
neither  law  nor  society  gave  full  scope  for  the 
restless  energy  of  his  mind.  During  all  the  later 
years  I  have  known  MacVeagh  he  has  been  a 
thinker,  serious,  daring,  too  often  unsound.  His 
reading  has  been  largely  among  books  dealing 
with  those  new  social  problems  which  vex  the 
minds  of  men,  often  needlessly,  and  disturb  clear 
brains.  Novelties  interested  him;  and  the  drift 
of  his  thoughts  was  toward  radical  reconstruction 


Yale  Class  of  1853  17 

and  toward  one  form  or  another  of  socialism.  '  He 
espoused  new  opinions  with  vehemence;  and 
sometimes  reverted  with  vehemence  to  the  old. 
We  met  again  in  London  some  five  and  twenty 
years  ago.  MacVeagh  delivered  to  a  little  com- 
pany at  lunch  a  brief  but  reasoned  and  rather 
passionate  discourse  against  our  diplomatic  service 
in  Europe.  When  I  suggested  that  we  had  none, 
he  retorted: 

''But  we  have  Ministers  and  Legations  and 
though  some  of  our  Ministers  are  good  and  able 
men,  they  are  wasted.  No  Minister  is  needed. 
All  the  business  of  the  United  States  in  Europe 
could  be  done  and  ought  to  be  done  by  Consuls, 
and  all  the  Legations  ought  to  be  abolished,  and 
the  Ministers  recalled." 

I  forget  just  how  long  it  was  after  this  outburst 
that  MacVeagh  was  appointed  Minister  to  Con- 
stantinople; and  accepted  and  served;  with  credit 
and  distinction,  and  afterward  more  efficiently 
still  as  Ambassador  to  Rome. 

He  had  a  pretty  wit  in  conversation,  and  a  power 
of  repartee  before  which  many  an  antagonist 
went  down.  A  celebrated  American  causeur  once 
attacked  him  as  a  Democrat.  "Yes,"  answered 
MacVeagh,  "I  am  a  Democrat  and  know  it. 
You  are  a  Democrat  and  don't  know  it.  You  have 
just  been  made  President  of  a  great  railroad 
corporation.  The  stock  sells  to-day  at  a  hundred 
and  twenty;  but  before  you  have  been  President 
three  years,  you  will  have  brought  it  within  reach 
of  the  humblest  citizen." 


1 8  Anglo-American  Memories 

An  unfulfilled  prophecy,  but  that  is  what  makes 
prophecy  so  useful  as  an  instrument  of  debate. 
Only  time  can  prove  it  false. 

These  men  and  many  more  gave  distinction 
to  the  class.  Randall  Gibson,  of  Louisiana, 
afterward  Confederate  General  and  United  States 
Senator,  cannot  be  omitted  from  the  briefest 
catalogue.  He  was  one  of  a  small  band  of  South- 
erners at  Yale.  When  you  came  to  know  him 
you  understood  what  the  South  means  by  the 
word  gentleman;  and  by  its  application  of  the 
title  to  the  best  of  its  own  people,  or  to  the  ruling 
class  in  the  South  as  a  whole.  Already,  of  course, 
and  even  in  this  younger  brood,  the  clash  of 
interests  and  sentiments,  the  ''prologue  to  the 
omen  coming  on,"  the  strained  relations  between 
South  and  North,  were  visible,  and  vexatious 
enough  in  social  intercourse.  Randall  Gibson 
was  saturated  with  Southern  ideas,  and  perhaps 
had  the  prejudices  of  his  race,  but  he  kept  them 
to  himself  or  did  not  impart  them  to  us  of  the 
North.  He  lived  in  the  upper  air,  yet  he  looked 
down  on  nobody.  There  was  no  more  popular 
man,  yet  no  man  who  held  himself  so  completely 
aloof  from  the  familiarities  common  enough  as 
between  classmates. 

In  after  life,  from  the  havoc  of  war  and  other 
causes,  he  suffered  much  and  bore  disaster  with 
courage.  He  was  a  man  with  reference  to  whom 
it  is  possible,  and  was  always  possible,  to  use  the 
much-abused  word  chivalrous,  with  the  certainty 
it  could  not  be  misunderstood.     When  he  died 


Yale  Class  of  1853  19 

there  passed  away  a  beautiful  example  of  a  type 
common  in  literature,  rare  in  life,  rarest  of  all  in 
this  generation,  the  grand  seigneur. 

There  was  lately  an  Englishman,  Earl  Spencer, 
whom  Randall  Gibson  resembled:  slightly  in 
appearance,  closely  in  those  essential  traits  which 
go  to  the  making  of  character.  The  same  ur- 
banity; the  same  considerateness  to  others;  the 
same  loyalty  of  nature;  the  same  shining  courage; 
the  same  unfailing  effort  to  conform  to  high 
ideals.  Both  men  had  the  pride  of  race  and  of 
descent.  In  both  it  turned  to  fine  effects.  I 
have  known  Lord  Spencer  to  submit — I  may 
be  forgiven  this  distant  allusion — to  what  can 
only  be  called  an  extortion  rather  than  engage 
in  a  legal  controversy  he  thought  undignified,  yet 
out  of  which  he  would  have  come  victorious.  I 
have  known  Randall  Gibson  to  accept  the  verdict 
of  fate,  the  award  of  undeserved  adversity,  rather 
than  defend  himself  when  his  success  might  have 
exposed  his  comrades  to  censure.  The  world 
may  call  it  in  both  of  them  quixotic,  but  the  world 
would  be  a  much  better  place  to  live  in  if  quixotry 
of  this  sort  were  commoner  than  it  is.  Neither 
of  these  two  men  railed  against  the  world,  or 
complained  of  its  ethical  standard.  All  they  did 
was  to  have  each  a  standard  of  his  own  and  to 
govern  their  own  lives  accordingly. 


CHAPTER  III 

YALE  PROFESSORS — HARVARD  LAW  SCHOOL 

nPHE  three  Yale  professors  whose  names  after 
*  all  these  years  stand  out  most  clearly  to 
me  are  Thacher,  Hadley,  and  Porter.  Professor 
Thacher  taught  Latin.  They  used  to  say  he 
knew  Tacitus  by  heart — perhaps  only  a  boyish 
emphasis  upon  his  knowledge  of  the  language 
and  literature.  He  was,  at  any  rate,  a  good 
Latinist,  and  a  good  teacher.  What  was  perhaps 
more  rare,  he  was  a  genial  companion,  to  whom 
the  distance  between  professor  and  pupil  was  not 
impassable.  He  won  our  sympathies  because 
he  gave  us  his;  and  our  admiration,  and  almost 
our  affection,  went  with  our  sympathies.  He  was 
one  of  the  few  college  dignitaries  upon  whom  the 
student  feels  himself  privileged  to  look  back  as 
a  friend;  for  on  his  side  the  spirit  of  friendly 
kindness  governed  the  relations  between  us. 

Of  Professor  Hadley's  Hellenism  we  expressed 
our  admiration  by  saying  he  dreamed  in  Greek. 
To  us,  so  long  as  we  were  in  his  hands,  Greek  was 
the  language  of  the  gods.  The  modern  heresies 
touching  the  place  of  Greek  in  a  liberal  education 
had  at  that  time  not  been  heard  of,  or  had  taken 
no  hold  upon  the  minds  of  either  teacher  or  pupil. 


Yale  Professors  21 

We  learnt  Greek,  so  far  as  we  learnt  it,  in  the  same 
unquestioning  spirit  as  we  read  the  Bible;  so  far 
as  we  read  it.  Hadley  taught  us  something 
more  than  grammar  and  prosody.  He  taught  us 
to  look  at  the  world  through  Greek  eyes  and  to 
think  Greek  thoughts.  To  him  the  Greek  lan- 
guage and  literature  were  not  dead  but  alive,  and 
he  sought  to  make  them  live  again  in  his  pupils. 
I  don't  say  that  he  always  succeeded;  or  often, 
but  at  least  we  perceived  his  aim,  and  we  listened 
with  delight  to  the  roll  of  Homer's  hexameters 
from  his  flexible  lips.  For  the  time  being  he  was 
a  Greek.  To  this  illusion  his  dark  eyes  and  olive 
skin  and  the  soft  full  tones  of  his  voice  con- 
tributed. Some  of  his  enthusiasms,  if  not  much 
of  his  learning,  imparted  themselves  to  us.  If 
we  presently  forgot  what  we  learned,  the  influence 
remained.  "I  do  not  ask,"  said  Sainte-Beuve, 
"that  a  man  shall  know  Latin  or  Greek.  All  I 
ask  is  that  he  shall  have  known  it."  A  sentence 
in  which  there  is  a  whole  philosophy  of  education ; 
a  philosophy  which  the  universities  that  have 
abolished  Greek  out  of  their  compulsory  courses 
forgot  to  take  into  account. 

Professor  Porter's  mission  was  to  implant  in 
our  young  minds  some  conception  of  Moral 
Philosophy  and  of  Rhetoric.  He  taught  per- 
suasively, sometimes  eloquently,  and  always  with 
a  clearness  of  thought  and  purpose  which  made 
him  intelligible  to  the  dullest  and  instructive. 
He  had  another  means  of  appeal  to  his  students. 
He   was   human   and   S3^mpathetic.     We   looked 


22  Anoflo-American  Memories 


'& 


upon  our  professors  as,  for  the  most  part,  beings 
far  removed  from  us;  exalted  by  their  position 
and  virtues  above  us,  and  above  mankind  in 
general;  a  sort  of  demigods  who  had  descended 
to  earth  for  the  good  of  its  inhabitants,  to  whom, 
however,  they  were  not  of  kin.  We  never  thought 
that  of  Professor  Porter.  He  had  a  magical 
smile;  it  was  the  magic  of  kindness.  We  fancied 
that  the  Faculty  dealt  with  the  students  in  a 
spirit  of  strict  justice;  from  their  point  of  view 
if  not  always  from  ours.  They  were  a  High 
Court  of  Justice  which  laid  down  the  law  and 
enforced  penalties  out  of  proportion  to  the  offence. 
It  was  law,  and  the  administration  of  it  was  in- 
exorable. Not  so  Porter.  He  was  never  a  hang- 
ing judge.  I  know  it  because  I  owed  to  him  the 
privilege  of  remaining  at  Yale  to  the  end  of  my 
four  years.  I  have  quite  forgotten  what  crime 
I  committed,  but  it  was  one  for  which,  according 
to  the  strict  code  by  which  the  undergraduates 
were  governed,  expulsion  was  the  proper  sentence ; 
or  perhaps  only  suspension,  which  in  my  case 
would  have  meant  the  same  thing.  But  Professor 
Porter  intervened.  There  were  mitigating  cir- 
cumstances. These  he  pressed  upon  his  col- 
leagues, and  I  believe  he  even  made  himself 
answerable  for  my  good  behaviour  thereafter. 
I  stayed  on,  and  if  I  did  not  profit  as  I  ought  to 
have  profited  by  the  opportunity  I  owed  to  him, 
I  was  at  least  grateful  to  him,  and  still  am. 

Professor    Porter    became    later    President    of 
Yale:  one  on  the  roll  of  Chief  Magistrates  of  the 


Yale  Professors  23 

University  to  whom  not  Yale  only  but  the  country 
is,  and  for  two  hundred  years  has  been,  indebted. 
He  ruled  wisely,  fine  administrative  qualities 
reinforcing  his  scholarly  distinction.  He  was 
beloved,  and  his  name  is  for  ever  a  part  of  the 
history  of  this  great  college. 

Looking  back  on  those  days  and  on  the  Pro- 
fessors I  have  known  since,  at  Yale,  Harvard, 
Columbia,  and  one  or  two  other  American  uni- 
versities, one  thing  impresses  me  beyond  all 
others.  It  is  the  spirit  of  devotion  in  those  men; 
of  devotion  to  learning,  to  letters,  to  their  colleges, 
and  to  their  country.  Many  of  them  were,  and 
many  in  these  days  are,  men  who  had  before  them 
other  and  far  more  profitable  careers.  They  might 
have  won  much  wider  fame  and  made  a  great 
deal  more  money.  They  have  been  content  with 
the  appreciation  of  their  own  world,  and  with 
salaries  which,  I  believe,  never  exceed  six  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  are  commonly  much  less.  When 
English  critics,  albeit  in  a  friendly  spirit,  have 
commented — in  private,  not  in  public — on  the 
American  love  of  money-making,  I  have  made 
this  answer,  pointing  to  the  absolute  unselfishness 
of  one  of  the  highest  types  of  American  citizen, 
all  over  the  land,  and  to  their  conception  of  what 
is  best  in  American  life.  I  have  always  added 
that  though  others  may  speak  of  their  renuncia- 
tion as  a  sacrifice,  they  never  do.  So  far  as  I 
know  them,  they  are  content  and  more  than  con- 
tent ;  they  rejoice  in  their  work  and  in  the  modest 
circumstances  which  alone  their  income  permits. 


24  Anglo-American  Memories 

Now  and  then  we  hear  of  some  brilhant  scholar 
as  having  refused  a  lucrative  post  in  order  to 
go  on  teaching  and  studying.  There  are  many 
more  whom  we  never  hear  of  publicly,  to  all  of 
whom  the  country  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  if 
nothing  else,  which  it  does  not  always  pay.  But 
here  in  England  if  you  state  the  facts  you  will 
find  them  accepted,  and  welcomed  as  the  best 
answer  to  the  reproach  of  money-ambitions — a 
reproach  based  on  conspicuous  exceptions  to  the 
general  American  rule  of  thrift  and  simplicity. 

After  graduating  at  Yale,  and  after  a  year  in 
Mr.  Hoar's  office  at  Worcester,  I  went  to  the 
Harvard  Law  School.  Harvard  was  as  much 
a  Unitarian  university  as  ever,  but  perhaps  it 
was  considered  that  law  was  a  safeguard  against 
loose  theology,  or  perhaps  the  old  reasons  were 
no  longer  omnipotent.  I  attempt  no  comparisons 
between  Yale  and  Harvard.  There  is  no  kind 
of  likeness  between  undergraduate  and  post- 
graduate life.  During  four  years  at  Yale  the 
discipline  had  been  rigid.  At  the  Law  School 
in  Cambridge  I  cannot  remember  that  we  were 
under  any  restraint  whatever.  In  New  Haven 
we  lived  either  in  the  college  dormitories  or  in 
houses  approved  by  the  Faculty;  and  I  am  not 
sure  that  in  my  time  we  did  not  all  sleep  within 
the  college  limits,  insanitary  and  uncomfortable 
as  many  of  the  buildings  then  were.  But  the 
law  student  in  Cambridge  lived  where  he  would 
and  as  he  would.  He  went  to  chapel  or  not, 
week-days  and   Sundays   alike,   to   suit  himself. 


Harvard  Law  School  25 

Not  even  attendance  at  the  law  lectures  was  com- 
pulsory. It  seems  to  have  been  held  that  students 
had  come  to  the  school  upon  serious  business, 
and  that  their  own  interest  and  the  success  of 
their  future  careers  would  be  enough  to  ensure 
their  presence.  It  was  not  always  so.  The  very 
freedom  which  ought  to  have  put  men  on  their 
honour  sometimes  became  a  temptation.  And 
Boston  was  a  temptation;  as  it  was,  and  must 
always  be,  to  undergraduates  and  graduates  alike. 
The  years  were  drawing  on — it  was  now  1854 — 
and  the  sectional  antagonism  of  which  there  had 
been  evidence  enough  at  Yale  was  increasing. 
We  were  older,  and  the  crisis  was  nearer.  There 
was  a  kind  of  Law  School  Parliament  in  which 
all  things  were  put  to  the  issue  of  debate,  and  the 
air  often  grew  hot.  Angry  words  were  exchanged 
between  Southerners  and  Northerners.  The 
rooted  belief  of  the  Southerner,  or  of  many 
Southerners,  that  they  had  a  monopoly  of  courage, 
was  sometimes  expressed.  More  than  once  chal- 
lenges were  talked  of,  though  I  believe  none  was 
actually  sent.  There  was  a  choleric  young  gentle- 
man from  Missouri  who  put  himself  forward  as 
champion  of  slavery,  and  there  was  an  attempt 
to  deny  to  us  of  the  North  the  right  to  express 
our  opinions  on  our  own  soil,  which  did  not 
succeed.  The  Missourian  was  the  exception. 
Of  the  Southerners  in  general  at  Harvard  I  should 
say  what  I  have  said  of  those  at  Yale:  if  they 
felt  themselves  of  a  superior  race  they  accepted 
the  obligations  of  superiority,  and  treated  their 


26  Anglo-American  Memories 

inferiors  with  an  amiable  condescension  for  which 
we  were  not  always  grateful. 

These  were  not  matters  of  which  the  authorities 
of  Dane  Law  School  took  notice.  Their  business 
was  to  teach  Law.  Judge  Parker  was  a  real 
lawyer,  who  afterwards  revised  the  General  Stat- 
utes of  Massachusetts  into  something  like  co- 
herence and  the  symmetry  of  a  Code.  He  handled 
the  law  in  a  scientific  spirit,  without  emphasis, 
not  without  dry  humour,  and  had  ever  a  luminous 
method  of  exposition  which  grew  more  luminous 
as  the  subjects  grew  more  abstruse.  His  colleague, 
Mr.  Theophilus  Parsons,  was,  I  think,  what  is 
called  a  case  lawyer,  to  whom  the  chose  jugee  was 
as  sacred  as  it  was  more  recently  to  the  anti- 
Drey  fusards.  There  are  always,  and  I  suppose 
always  will  be,  lawyers  to  whom  decisions  are 
more  than  principles.  Parsons  was  one  of  these, 
while  Parker's  aim  was  to  present  to  the  student 
the  entire  body  of  law  as  a  homogeneous  whole, 
organic,  capable  of  abstract  treatment,  capable 
of  being  set  forth  in  the  dry  light  of  reason. 
Whether  it  was  the  difference  in  the  men  or  in 
their  methods  I  know  not,  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Judge  Parker's  lectures  were  better 
attended  and  more  devoutly  listened  to  by  the 
students,  and  that  his  system  bore  fruit.  For 
it  created  a  habit  of  mind,  and  under  his  teaching 
a  legal  mind  was  formed,  and  became  a  better 
instrument  for  use  at  the  Bar. 

The  Bar  of  Massachusetts  was  at  that  time  in  a 
period  of  splendour,  as  it  had  been  for  generations. 


Harvard  Law  School  27 

Webster  was  gone,  and  there  was  no  second 
Webster ;  he  was  the  leader  not  only  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bar  but  of  the  American  Bar.  But 
Rufus  Choate  was  still  in  his  prime,  whose  eccen- 
tricities of  manner  and  of  speech  could  not  dis- 
guise forensic  abilities  of  almost  the  first  order. 
Sydney  Bartlett,  his  rival,  was  as  sound  as  Choate 
was  showy.  But  Choate  also  was  sound,  though 
he  had  a  spirit  of  adventure  which  carried  him 
too  far,  and  a  rhetoric  not  seldom  flamboyant. 
Some  of  his  phrases  are  historical,  as  of  a  witness 
who  sought  to  palliate  his  dishonesty  by  declaring 
that  he  never  disclosed  his  iniquitous  scheme. 
"A  soliloquy  of  fraud, "  retorted  Choate.  I  heard 
one  of  his  brethren  at  the  Bar  say  to  him  as  he 
came  into  court:  "I  suppose  you  will  give  us  a 
great  sensation  to-day,  Mr.  Choate."  "No," 
answered  Choate,  "it  is  too  great  a  case  for  sen- 
sation." And  he  tried  it  all  day  with  sedateness. 
Chief  Justice  Shaw  disliked  him,  or  disliked  his 
methods,  and  sometimes  showed  his  dislike,  over- 
ruling him  rather  roughly.  The  great  judge  was 
not  an  Apollo,  and  there  came  a  day  when  Mr. 
Choate,  smarting  under  judicial  censure,  remarked 
in  an  audible  aside  to  his  associate  counsel: 
"The  Chief  Justice  suggests  to  me  an  Indian 
idol.  We  feel  that  he  is  great  and  we  see  that 
he  is  ugly. ' '  But  amenities  like  that  were  unusual. 
General  Butler,  afterward  too  famous  at  New 
Orleans  and  Fort  Fisher,  yet  after  that  the  Demo- 
cratic Governor  of  Whig  Massachusetts,  had  a 
none  too  savoury  renown  at  the  Bar.     Yet  it  was 


28  Anglo-American  Memories 

said  of  him  by  an  opponent:  "If  you  try  your 
case  fairly,  Butler  will  try  his  side  of  it  fairly; 
but  if  you  play  tricks  he  can  play  more  tricks 
than  you  can."  His  sense  of  humour  was  his 
own,  sometimes  effective  and  sometimes  not. 
Defending  a  railway  against  an  action  by  a  farmer 
whose  waggon  had  been  run  over  by  a  train,  and 
who  alleged  that  the  look-out  sign  was  not,  as 
required  by  law,  in  letters  five  inches  long,  Butler 
made  him  admit  he  had  not  looked  at  the  sign. 
"Then,"  said  Butler  to  the  jury,  "it  could  not 
have  availed  had  the  sign  been  in  letters  of  living 
light — five  inches  long." 

The  best  contrast  to  Butler  was  Richard  H. 
Dana,  as  good  a  lawyer,  or  better,  and  with  the 
best  traditions  of  a  high-minded  Bar,  pursued 
in  the  best  spirit.  But  I  will  leave  Dana  till  I 
come  to  the  Bums  case. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW  MASSACHUSETTS   IN    1 854   SURRENDERED   THE 
FUGITIVE  SLAVE  ANTHONY  BURNS 

TT  was  in  May,  1854,  that  Anthony  Bums  of 
^  Virginia  was  arrested  in  Boston  as  a  fugitive 
slave  and  brought  before  Judge  Loring,  United 
States  Commissioner  under  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Act  of  1850.  I  am  not  going  to  re-tell  the  familiar 
story  of  his  so-called  trial  and  of  the  surrender  of 
Burns  to  Colonel  Suttle,  also  of  Virginia.  The 
actual  military  rank  held  by  Suttle  I  do  not  know, 
but  I  call  him  Colonel  on  general  principles;  or  on 
the  principle  announced  by  the  late  Max  O'Rell 
in  his  book  on  America;  with  its  population  of 
sixty  millions;  "/a  plupart  des  colonels ^  But  I 
will  tell  what  I  saw ;  and  what  sort  of  impression 
the  event  made  at  the  time  upon  an  eye-witness 
who  belonged  to  the  dominant  and  most  conserva- 
tive party  in  the  State;  the  Whig  party. 

The  arrest  of  Burns  made  a  stir  in  the  old 
Commonwealth  comparable  to  none  other  which 
had  occurred  down  to  that  time.  From  Worcester, 
where  I  was  then  reading  more  or  less  law  with 
Mr.  Hoar,  I  went  to  Boston  to  look  on  at  these 
proceedings.     I  went  from  no  particular  feeling 

of  sympathy  with  Burns,   nor  yet  mainly  from 

29 


30  Anglo-American  Memories 

abhorrence  of  that  subservience  to  slaveholders 
in  which,  until  after  Webster's  Seventh  of  March 
speech  in  1850,  Massachusetts  had  been  steeped. 
I  went  from  curiosity.  I  wanted  to  see  how 
the  legal  side  of  it  was  managed.  For  though 
the  popular  dislike  of  such  proceedings,  which 
neither  the  Shadrach  nor  the  Sims  case  had  fully 
roused,  was  then  slumbering,  the  State  had,  so 
long  ago  as  1843,  passed  a  law  forbidding  any 
judge  or  other  officer  holding  a  commission  from 
the  State  to  take  any  part  in  the  rendition  of  any 
person  claimed  as  a  fugitive  slave  under  the  old 
Act  of  Congress  of  1793.  Yet  here  was  a  Massa- 
chusetts Judge  of  Probate  sitting  as  United 
States  Commissioner  and  doing  the  work  which 
in  the  South  itself  was  done  by  bloodhounds,  and 
by  the  basest  of  mankind.  I  thought  I  should 
like  to  see  how  such  a  man  looked  while  engaged 
upon  that  task;  the  more  so  as  he  bore  a  good 
Massachusetts  name;  and  what  kind  of  a  trial 
a  fugitive  slave  was  to  have  on  Massachusetts 
soil. 

Burns  was  seized  on  a  Wednesday  evening,  May 
24th.  He  appeared  before  Judge  Loring  at  nine 
o'clock  Thursday  morning,  handcuffed,  between 
two  policemen.  It  was  obviously  intended  that 
the  "trial"  should  begin  and  end  that  same  morn- 
ing. Burns  had  been  allowed  to  see  nobody.  He 
had  no  counsel.  When  Robert  Morris,  a  coloured 
lawyer,  tried  to  speak  to  him  the  policemen 
drove  him  away.  By  chance,  Mr.  Richard  H. 
Dana,  Jr.,  and  another  lawyer  of    repute,   Mr. 


Surrender  of  Anthony  Burns  31 

C.  M.  Ellis,  heard  of  what  was  going  on,  and 
went  to  the  court-room.  Dana  intervened,  not  as 
counsel,  for  he  had  no  standing  as  counsel,  but 
as  amicus  curicB,  and  asked  that  the  hearing  be 
postponed  and  that  Burns  be  allowed  to  consult 
friends  and  counsel.  The  black  man  sat  there 
"stupefied  and  terrified,*'  as  Dana  said,  incapable 
of  thought  or  action.  After  repeated  protests  by 
Dana  and  Ellis,  Judge  Loring  put  off  the  hearing 
till  Saturday.  But  Burns  was  still  kept  in  secret 
confinement.  When  Wendell  Phillips  asked  to 
see  him  to  arrange  that  he  should  have  counsel, 
the  United  States  Marshal  refused.  Phillips  went 
to  Cambridge  to  see  Judge  Loring,  and  Judge 
Loring  gave  him  an  order  of  admission  to  the  cell. 
But  he  said  to  Phillips — this  Judge-Commissioner 
said  of  the  cause  he  was  about  to  try  judicially — 

"Mr.  Phillips,  the  case  is  so  clear  that  I  do  not 
think  you  will  be  justified  in  placing  any  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  this  man's  going  back,  as  he  probably 
will!'' 

A  remark  without  precedent  or  successor  in 
Massachusetts  jurisprudence,  which,  before  and 
since,  has  ever  borne  an  honourable  renown  for 
judicial  impartiality. 

When  I  went  to  the  Court  House  on  the  Saturday 
it  had  become  a  fortress.  There  were  United 
States  Marshals  and  their  deputies,  police  in 
great  numbers,  and  United  States  Marines.  The 
chain  had  not  then  been  hung  about  the  building 
nor  had  Chief  Justice  Shaw  yet  crawled  beneath 
it.     I  was  allowed  to  enter  the  building,  and  to 


32  Anglo-American  Memories 

go  upstairs  to  the  corridor  on  the  first  floor,  out 
of  which  opened  the  door  of  the  court-room  where 
Burns  was  being  tried,  not  for  his  Hfe,  but  for 
freedom  which  was  more  than  life.  There  I  was 
stopped.  The  police  officer  at  the  door  would 
listen  to  nothing.  The  court-room,  free  by  law 
and  by  custom  to  all  citizens,  was  closed  by  order, 
as  I  understood,  not  of  the  Commissioner  who 
was  holding  his  slave-court,  but  by  the  United 
States  Marshal,  who  was  responsible  for  the 
custody  of  Burns  and  alarmed  by  the  state  of 
public  opinion.  While  I  argued  with  the  police, 
there  came  up  a  smart  young  officer  of  United 
States  Marines.  He  asked  what  it  was  all  about. 
I  said  I  was  a  law  student  and  wished  to  enter. 
"Admit  him,"  said  the  officer  of  United  States 
Marines.  He  waited  till  he  saw  his  order  obeyed 
and  the  police  stand  aside  from  the  door;  then 
bowed  to  me  and  went  his  way.  So  it  happened 
that  it  was  to  an  officer  of  an  armed  force  of  the 
United  States  that  I  was  indebted  for  the  privilege 
of  entering  a  Massachusetts  court-room  while  a 
public  trial  was  going  on. 

Inside  they  were  taking  testimony.  Mr.  Dana 
and  Mr.  Ellis  were  now  acting  as  counsel  for 
Burns,  who  still  seemed  "stupefied and  terrified." 
The  testimony  was  only  interesting  because  it 
concerned  the  liberty  of  a  human  being.  Judge 
Loring  sat  upon  the  bench  with,  at  last,  an  anxious 
look  as  if  he  had  begun  to  realize  the  storm  that 
was  raging  outside,  and  the  revolt  of  Massa- 
chusetts  against  this  business   of   slave-catching 


Surrender  of  Anthony  Burns  33 

by  Massachusetts  judges.  I  spoke  for  a  moment 
with  Mr.  Dana  and  then  with  one  or  two  of  the 
anti-slavery  leaders  who  sat  listening  to  the 
proceedings.  That  sealed  my  fate.  When  I 
returned  after  the  adjournment  I  was  again 
refused  admission,  and  ordered  to  leave  the  Court 
House.  When  I  told  the  Deputy  Marshal  I  had 
as  much  right  there  as  he  had  and  would  take 
no  orders  from  him,  he  threatened  me  with 
arrest.  But  of  this  he  presently  thought  better, 
and  finding  all  protest  useless,  I  went  away. 

Of  the  "trial,"  therefore,  I  saw  and  heard 
little.  But  of  the  Faneuil  Hall  meeting  called 
to  protest  against  the  surrender  I  saw  much, 
though  not  of  the  sequel  to  it  in  Court  Square. 
Most  of  the  Abolitionist  leaders  were  there,  but 
the  Abolitionists  at  that  time  would  have  been 
lost  in  the  great  spaces  of  Faneuil  Hall.  The 
three  thousand  men  who  crowded  it  were  the 
"solid  men  of  Boston,"  who  by  this  time  had 
begun  to  think  they  did  not  care  to  see  a  Vir- 
ginian slave-holder  crack  his  whip  about  their 
ears.  The  Puritan  temper  was  up.  The  spirit 
of  Otis  and  Hancock  and  Sam  Adams  burned  once 
more  in  the  hearts  of  living  men.  The  cheers 
were  incessant;  cheers  for  men  who  a  few 
days  before  had  been  almost  outcasts — far  out- 
side at  any  rate,  the  sacred  sphere  in  which  the 
men  of  State  Street  and  Beacon  Street  dwelt. 
Theodore  Parker,  who  spoke  first  from  a  gallery, 
was  cheered,  and  Phillips  was  cheered.  As  the 
evening   drew   on,    it   was   evident   that   violent 


34  Anglo-American  Memories 

counsels  were  likely  to  prevail.  Already  there 
had  been,  all  over  the  city,  talk  of  a  rescue. 
Parker,  ever  prone  to  extreme  views,  was  for  it, 
and  made  a  speech  for  which  he  was  indicted 
but  of  course  never  tried.  The  indictment  was 
but  a  piece  of  vindictive  annoyance.  But  evi- 
dently nothing  had  been  prepared,  or,  if  it  had 
been,  these  leaders  had  not  been  taken  into  the 
confidence  of  the  men  who  meant  real  business. 

Toward  the  end  some  one — name  unknown — 
moved  that  the  meeting  adjourn  to  the  Revere 
House  to  groan  Suttle.  Parker,  who  was  not 
chairman,  put  the  motion  and  declared  it  carried, 
as  beyond  doubt  it  was,  and  with  wild  shouts  the 
vast  audience,  too  closely  packed  to  move  quickly, 
set  their  faces  to  the  door  and  began  streaming 
slowly  out.  Phillips,  who  was  against  this  plan 
and  against  any  violence  not  efficiently  organized, 
came  forward  on  the  platform.  The  few  sen- 
tences he  uttered  have  never,  I  think,  been  re- 
ported or  printed,  but  I  can  hear  them  still. 
At  the  first  note  of  that  clarion  voice  the  surging 
throng  stopped  and  turned.     Said  Phillips: 

"Let  us  remember  where  we  are  and  what  we 
are  going  to  do.  You  have  said  that  you  will 
vindicate  the  fame  of  Massachusetts.  Let  me 
tell  you  that  you  will  never  do  it  by  going  to  the 
Revere  House  to-night  to  attempt  the  impossible 
feat  of  insulting  a  kidnapper.  The  zeal  that  won't 
keep  till  to-morrow  never  will  free  a  slave." 

In  that  single  moment,  he  had  recovered  his 
control  of  the  audience.     The  movement  to  the 


Surrender  of  Anthony  Burns  35 

doors  had  stopped.  Every  one  waited  for  what 
was  coming.  PhiUips  was  at  his  best.  He  was 
master  of  himself  and  of  those  before  him.  The 
words  of  entreaty  were  words  of  command-  He 
stood  and  spoke  as  one  having  authority. 

But  just  then  came  a  voice  from  the  other  end 
of  the  hall.  It  belonged  to  Mr.  Charles  L.  Swift, 
the  vehement  young  editor  of  a  weekly  paper 
called  The  Commonwealth,  and  it  announced  that 
a  mob  of  negroes  had  attacked  the  Court  House, 
which  had  been  turned  into  a  gaol,  and  wanted 
help  to  rescue  Burns.  That  dissolved  the  spell. 
Faces  were  again  turned  to  the  door.  The  shouts 
which  Phillips  had  silenced  broke  loose  once  more ; 
and  the  three  thousand  citizens  of  Boston  had 
become  a  mob.  It  was  all  to  no  purpose.  The 
hall  was  long  in  emptying  itself:  and  long  before 
those  who  were  really  in  earnest  could  reach  the 
Court  House,  the  ill-advised  and  ill-planned  at- 
tack had  been  made  and  failed.  Colonel  Higgin- 
son,  who,  I  believe,  devised  it  and  led  it,  had  not 
at  that  time  any  experience  in  measures  of  war. 
He  had  plenty  of  courage  of  the  hot-headed  kind— ' 
the  kind  not  then  needed.  Perhaps  Alcott  who, 
after  the  rush  had  been  made  with  no  success, 
marched  coolly  up  the  steps  leading  to  the  door 
defended  by  armed  police  and  troops,  umbrella 
in  hand,  was  as  much  a  hero  as  anybody.  But 
it  was  all  over,  I  gathered  in  a  few  minutes,  and 
the  only  casualty  was  the  death  of  a  Marshal's 
deputy,  James  Batchelder.  I  had  got  away  from 
Faneuil  Hall  as  soon  as  I  could,  and  the  distance 


36  AnHo-American  Memories 


to  the  Court  House  is  short,  but  I  arrived  too 
late  to  see  anything  but  an  empty  square  and 
that  open  doorway  with  a  phalanx  of  defenders 
inside. 

Burns  was  not  rescued.  He  was  surrendered, 
and  no  man  who  saw  it  ever  forgot  that  shameful 
spectacle,  nor  doubted  that  it  was  the  rendition 
of  Anthony  Bums  which  completed  the  conversion 
of  the  Old  Bay  State  from  the  pro-slavery  to  the 
anti-slavery  faith.  Webster  had  held  the  Puritan 
conscience  in  chains  for  a  generation.  It  revolted, 
no  doubt,  at  the  Seventh  of  March  speech;  it  was 
stirred  by  the  Shadrach  and  Sims  cases;  but  the 
final  emancipation  of  the  State  from  its  long 
thraldom  to  the  slave  power  coincided  with  the 
surrender  of  Burns  to  Suttle.  On  that  Saturday, 
men  saw  for  themselves,  and  for  the  first  time, 
what  fugitive  slave-hunting  in  Massachusetts 
really  meant,  and  what  degree  of  degradation 
it  brought. 

The  Court  House  in  chains;  the  Chief  Justice 
stooping  to  pass  beneath  them;  the  streets  and 
squares  crowded  with  State  Militia,  guarding 
the  entrance  to  every  street  on  the  route;  United 
States  Marines  in  hollow  square  with  Burns 
and  the  United  States  Marshals  in  the  centre; 
United  States  troops  preceding  and  United  States 
artillery  following.  It  was  fitting  that  it  should 
be  so.  The  State  and  the  United  States  were 
partners  in  the  crime,  equal  offenders  against 
the  moral  law,  or  against  the  higher  law,  which 
till  then  had  been  the_  heritage  of  the  Puritan 


Surrender  of  Anthony  Burns  37 

Commonwealth,  and  had  sometimes  been  heard 
of  even  in  Washington.  They  shared  in  the  guilt 
and  shared  in  the  infamy.  Both  have  since  amply 
atoned  for  their  sin,  but  nothing,  not  even  a 
Four  Years'  Civil  War  for  Union  and  Freedom, 
not  even  the  blood  of  heroes  and  martyrs,  will 
ever  quite  wash  out  from  the  memory  of  those 
who  saw  it  the  humiliations  of  that  day.  It 
blistered  and  burnt  and  left  a  scar  for  ever. 
This  procession  took  its  course  in  broad  daylight 
down  State  Street  on  its  way  to  Long  Wharf, 
where  a  United  States  revenue  cutter  waited  to 
embark  the  kidnapped  slave — kidnapped  by  pro- 
cess of  law — and  his  master,  Suttle.  The  steps 
of  the  Merchants'  Exchange  were  thronged  with 
Lawrences  and  Fays  and  Lorings  who  had  been 
foremost  in  trying  to  crush  the  anti-slavery 
agitation.  But  when  this  column  drew  near, 
these  friends  and  servants  of  the  slave-owner 
and  of  the  cotton  trade  suddenly  remembered 
that  they  were  men  before  they  were  merchants; 
and  men  of  Massachusetts  at  that.  They  broke 
into  groans  and  cries  of  execration,  and  the  troops 
marched  past  them  to  the  music  of  hisses  and 
curses.  All  this  I  saw  and  heard.  The  re-en- 
slavement of  Burns  was  the  liberation  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  next  time  I  saw  troops  in  the 
streets  of  Boston  was  in  April,  1861,  when  the 
Sixth  Massachusetts  Regiment,  answering  to 
the  call  of  President  Lincoln,  started  for  Wash- 
ington via  Baltimore,  with  results  known  to  the 
world. 


38  Anglo-American  Memories 

One  more  incident.  On  the  Sunday  Theodore 
Parker  preached  in  the  Music  Hall,  then  the 
largest  hall  in  Boston,  what  he  called  a  sermon 
on  these  events.  But  Parker's  sermons  were  very 
often  like  those  of  Cromwell's  colonels;  you  heard 
in  them  the  clash  of  arms,  and  in  this  more  than 
in  most.  He  never  cared  deeply  about  measuring 
his  words,  and  he  believed  in  speaking  the  truth 
about  men  as  well  as  things  with  extreme  plainness. 
On  this  Sunday  he  was  in  his  finest  Old  Testament 
mood;  the  messenger  of  the  wrath  of  the  Al- 
mighty. He  flung  open  his  Bible  with  the  gesture 
of  a  man  who  draws  a  sword,  and  in  tones  that 
rang  like  a  cry  of  battle,  thundered  out  his 
text: 

"Exodus  XX.  15.     'Thou  shalt  not  steal.'  " 

The  text  was  itself  a  sermon.  It  was  the 
custom  in  this  Music  Hall  church  to  applaud 
when  you  felt  like  it,  or  even  to  hiss.  A  deep 
murmur,  which  presently  swelled  into  a  roar 
of  applause,  greeted  the  text.  The  face  of  the 
preacher  was  aflame;  so  were  his  words  as  he  told 
the  story  of  this  awful  week  and  set  in  the  clear 
light  of  truth  the  acts  and  words  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Judge  who  had  brought  disgrace  upon 
Massachusetts.  When  he  came  to  the  attack 
on  the  Court  House,  the  abortive  attempt  to 
rescue  Burns,  and  the  death  of  the  Marshal's 
deputy  killed  at  his  post,  he  burst  out: 

''Edward  Greely  Loring,  I  charge  you  with  the 
murder  of  James  Batchelder.  You  fired  the  shot 
that   made   his   wife   a   widow   and   his   children 


Surrender  of  Anthony  Burns  39 

orphans.  Yours  is  the  guilt.  The  penalty  a 
righteous  God  will  exact  for  that  life  he  will  de- 
mand from  you." 

To  say  that,  he  left  his  pulpit,  which  was  but 
a  desk  on  the  Music  Hall  platform,  stepped  a 
little  to  one  side,  and  stood  full  in  view  of  the 
great  company  which  had  gathered  to  hear  him 
on  this  peaceful  Sabbath  morning;  a  fair  target 
for  another  shot  had  any  hearer  been  minded  to 
try  one.  You  think  that  a  fanciful  suggestion? 
Then  you  little  know  the  fierceness  of  the  feelings 
which  in  those  days  raged  in  Boston.  They 
presently  grew  fiercer,  and  reached  a  climax  in 
i860  and  the  early  winter  of  1861;  when  men  on 
both  sides  for  many  months  went  armed,  and 
were  quite  ready  to  use  their  arms;  and  when 
Phillips  and  Garrison  were  in  daily  peril  of  their 
lives  from  assassination  and,  less  frequently  but 
more  deadly,  from  mobs. 

Among  all  that  devoted  band  there  was  no 
braver  soul  than  Parker's.  He  was  by  profession 
and  training  a  scholar,  a  theologian,  a  man  of 
books  and  letters,  with  a  rare  knowledge  of 
languages  and  literature,  and  the  best  collection 
of  German  ballads  in  America;  shelves  full  of 
them  in  his  library  at  the  top  of  his  house.  But 
by  temperament  he  was  a  fighter;  as  befitted  the 
grandson  of  that  Captain  John  Parker  who  com- 
manded the  minute  men  at  Lexington,  April 
19th,  1775.  He  wrote  much,  preached  often  and 
well,  and  for  twenty  years  was  a  great  force  in 
Boston  and  elsewhere.     A  fiery  little  man,  with 


40  Anglo-American  Memories 

a  ruddy  face  and  great  dome  of  a  head,  specta- 
cles over  his  pale  blue  eyes,  the  love  of  God 
and  of  his  fellow-men  in  his  heart;  and  by  them 
beloved. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  AMERICAN  DEFOE,   RICHARD  HENRY  DANA,  JR. 

DICHARD  HENRY  DANA,  Jr.,  to  whose 
^  ^     intervention  in  the  Burns  case  we  owe  it 

that  Judge  Loring  was  compelled  to  grant  Burns 
something  in  the  nature  of  a  trial,  was  a  man  whom 
Massachusetts  may  well  be  content  to  remember 
as  one  of  her  representatives  for  all  time.  By- 
descent,  and  in  himself,  he  was  a  chosen  son  of 
that  chosen  people.  His  father,  Richard  Henry, 
his  grandfather,  Francis,  his  great-grandfather, 
Richard,  were  all  jurists,  all  patriots,  all  men  of 
letters.  Take  one  step  more,  and  you  come  to 
Daniel,  then  to  Richard  again,  who,  if  not  quite 
a  voyager  to  New  England  in  the  Mayflower,  is 
heard  of  as  a  resident  in  Cambridge  in  1640.  Six 
Danas — nay,  five,  since  our  Dana  survived  his 
father  but  three  years — span  two  centuries  and  a 
half:  from  father  to  son  as  they  took  their  march 
down  these  eventful  years,  an  unbroken  line,  a 
race  of  gentlemen. 

It  used  to  be  made  a  reproach  to  the  Dana  of 
whom  I  write  that  he  was  a  gentleman.  Beyond 
doubt  he  deserved  the  reproach.  When  a  candi- 
date for  Congress  in  1868  in  the  Essex  district 
against  Ben  Butler  that  eminent  warrior  called 

41 


42  Anglo-American  Memories 

him  a  kid-gloved  aristocrat.  "Not  even  gloved 
has  my  hand  ever  touched  his,"  answered  Dana  in 
the  heat  of  a  redhot  campaign.  Butler's  rancour 
lasted  to  the  end,  as  we  shall  see. 

This,  of  course,  is  no  biography  of  Dana.  I 
am  writing  of  what  I  saw  and  heard ;  or  not  much 
more.  I  dealt  with  the  Burns  case  as  a  record 
of  personal  impressions.  But  let  me  quote  as  an 
example  of  Dana's  method  of  statement  his  account 
of  Burns's  arrest.     He  said  to  Judge  Loring: 

Burns  was  arrested  suddenly,  on  a  false  pretence,  coming 
home  at  nightfall  from  his  day's  work,  and  hurried  into 
custody,  among  strange  men,  in  a  strange  place,  and  sud- 
denly, whether  claimed  rightfully  or  claimed  wrongfully, 
he  saw  he  was  claimed  as  a  slave,  and  his  condition  burst 
upon  him  in  a  flood  of  terror.  This  was  at  night.  You 
saw  him,  sir,  the  next  day,  and  you  remember  the  state  he 
was  then  in.  You  remember  his  stupefied  and  terrified 
condition.  You  remember  his  hesitation,  his  timid  glance 
about  the  room,  even  when  looking  in  the  mild  face  of 
justice.    How  little  your  kind  words  reassured  him. 

That  is  the  same  hand  which  wrote  Two  Years 
Before  the  Mast — the  touch  of  Defoe,  with  Defoe's 
direct  simplicity  of  method  and  power  of  getting 
the  effect  he  wanted  by  the  simplest  means ;  the 
last  word  in  art,  in  all  arts.  Dana  was  incapable 
of  rhetorical  extravagance  or  of  insincerity  of  any 
kind.  His  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast  is  as  much 
a  classic  in  England  as  at  home.  One  proof  of  it 
is  the  number  of  pirated  editions,  before  there  was 
an  international  copyright  law.  He  wrote  to  me 
once:  "I  hear  there  is  a  cheap  English  edition  of 


The  American  Defoe  43 

the  book  which  has  had,  because  of  its  cheapness, 
a  great  circulation.  PubHshed,  I  think,  in  Hull. 
Could  you  send  me  a  copy  as  a  curiosity?"  I 
sent  it;  a  little  fat  volume  with  a  red  cloth  cover, 
much  gilt,  very  closely  printed,  and  sold  at  a 
shilling,  long  before  the  days  of  cheap  books. 
It  had  sold  by  scores  of  thousands.  It  is  a 
book  always  in  print,  in  one  edition  or  another. 
Copyright  profited  Dana  no  more  in  America 
than  in  England,  or  not  for  a  long  time.  Bryant, 
to  whom  Dana's  father  sent  the  manuscript, 
hawked  it  about  from  one  publisher  to  another 
in  vain,  till  finally  he  sold  it  outright  to  Harpers 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  copyright  and 
all.  In  my  copy,  with  the  imprint  of  James  R. 
Osgood  &  Co.,  Boston,  is  a  Preface  dated  1869, 
in  which  Dana  says:  "After  twenty-eight  years 
the  copyright  of  this  book  has  reverted  to  me"; 
and  so  he  presents  the  first  "author's  edition" 
to  the  public.  My  copy  was  a  gift  from  Dana; 
it  is  among  the  treasures  I  possess  and  care  for 
most,  with  this  inscription  in  Dana's  clear,  quiet 
handwriting: 

My  dear  Smalley, — Will  you  accept  this  volume  from 
me  and  believe  me  ever  truly  yours, 

Rich'd  H.  Dana,  Jr. 
Boston,  Feb.  17,  1876. 

My  real  acquaintance  with  Dana  had  begun 
ten  years  before,  when,  in  June  or  July,  1866,  we 
crossed  the  Atlantic  together  in  what  was  then  the 
crack  ship  of  the  Cunard  line,  the  China,  the  first 


44  Anglo-American  Memories 

screw  that  carried  the  Cunard  flag,  capable  of 
fourteen  knots.  The  Cunarders  then  sailed  from 
Boston,  touched  at  Halifax,  and  thence  steamed 
to  Queenstown  direct,  and  so  on  to  Liverpool. 
Halifax  was  an  experience;  it  took  us,  with  all  the 
Cunard  seamanship,  and  there  was  none  better, 
four  hours  to  get  alongside  the  pier,  the  currents 
running  I  know  not  how  many  miles  an  hour. 

The  China  belonged  to  the  old  school;  of  all 
new  schools  the  Cunard  people,  now  foremost 
in  everything,  had  at  that  time  an  abhorrence. 
The  saloon  aft  and  tapering  to  a  point,  racks  over 
the  table  filled  with  table  glass,  long  benches  for 
seats,  cabins  crowded  and  dimly  lighted  with  one 
smoking  and  smelling  oil  lamp  in  a  triangular 
glass  case  between  two  cabins;  sanitary  arrange- 
ments unspeakable.  I,  on  my  first  Atlantic 
voyage,  thought  it  all  the  height  of  luxury;  and 
so  it  was,  for  that  time.  The  modern  comforts 
and  splendours  of  sea  life  date  from  1889  with 
the  White  Star  Teutonic,  launched  in  that  year, 
first  of  the  "floating  palaces."  The  China  made 
her  way  from  Halifax  to  Queenstown  through  a 
continuous  fog  at  undiminished  speed.  The  cap- 
tain, for  an  exception  among  the  Cunard  captains 
of  those  days,  regarded  a  passenger  as  a  human, 
being,  and  not  merely  as  a  parcel  to  be  safely 
carried  from  port  to  port  and  dumped  safely  oni 
the  wharf,  intermediate  sufferings  of  no  account. 
He  would  answer  a  question.  I  asked  him,  with 
the  audacity  of  a  novice,  whether  it  was  safe  to 
steam  day  and  night  through  a  fog  at  full  speed. 


The  American  Defoe  45 

"Safe,  good  God,  no." 

"Then  why  do  you  do  it?" 

"Why?  I  will  tell  you  why.  First,  we  have 
got  to  get  to  Queenstown  and  Liverpool.  Second, 
fogs  don't  last  for  ever,  and  the  faster  we  go  the 
sooner  we  shall  get  out  of  this  one.  And  third, 
if  there's  a  collision,  the  vessel  going  at  the  greatest 
speed  has  the  best  chance." 

So  antedating  by  many  years  the  famous 
saying  of  another  Cunard  captain,  summoned 
to  the  bridge  when  a  collision  seemed  imminent, 
finding  the  engines  reversed,  and  instantly  ordering 
"full  speed  ahead";  remarking  to  the  first  officer 
who  had  reversed  the  engines:  "If  there's  any 
running  down  to  be  done  on  this  voyage,  I  propose 
to  do  it. "     But  there  was  none. 

When  I  told  Dana  of  my  talk  with  the  China's 
captain,  that  experienced  seaman  and  author 
of  The  Seaman's  Manual  observed:  "I  like  a 
captain  to  have  the  courage  of  his  opinions,  but 
not  to  tell  his  passengers.  Keep  it  to  yourself." 
And  I  have  kept  it  for  forty  years;  the  captain  and 
ship  are  gone  to  Davy  Jones's  locker.  Nothing 
happened,  but  something  very  nearly  happened. 
There  had  been  no  chance  of  an  observation 
since  leaving  Halifax,  and  we  made  the  Irish 
coast  rather  suddenly,  some  miles  further  north 
than  we  expected,  came  near  enough  to  hear  the 
breakers,  and  swung  to  the  south  in  safety. 

His  mind  full  of  sea  lore  and  of  sea  romance  as 
well,  Dana  was  the  most  delightful  of  companions 
on  shipboard.     Beneath  an  exterior  which  people 


46  Anglo-American  Memories 

thought  cold,  he  had  a  great  kindliness  of  nature. 
He  made  no  professions;  his  acts  spoke  for  him. 
He  gave  freely  of  the  riches  of  his  mind.  He 
knew  England  and  the  ways  of  the  English,  and 
was  full  of  illustrative  stories;  among  them  was 
one  of  his  first  visit  to  the  House  of  Commons. 

I  heard  that  night  one  of  the  best  speeches  to  which  I 
ever  listened:  fluent,  rich  in  facts,  sound  in  argument;  well 
phrased  and  well  delivered.  I  said  to  myself,  "  That  man 
must  carry  the  House  with  him."  When  he  sat  down  a 
member  rose  on  the  opposite  side  and  spoke  for  perhaps  ten 
minutes.  He  stumbled  along,  hesitated,  grew  confused, 
his  sentences  without  beginning  or  end;  nothing  but  a 
knowledge  of  the  subject  and  a  great  sincerity  to  recom- 
mend him. 

But  it  was  perfectly  evident  that  the  first  speech  had  no 
weight  with  the  House,  and  that  the  second  convinced 
everybody.  The  first  speaker  was  Whiteside,  a  brilliant 
Irishman  and  Solicitor- General;  the  second  a  county 
member  whose  name  I  never  knew.  The  House  thought 
Whiteside  merely  an  advocate  and  his  speech  forensic. 
His  opponent  was  a  man  whom  everybody  trusted.  It 
was  character  that  carried  the  day.  And  you  will  find  it 
generally  does  with  the  English. 

Dana  brought  to  the  study  of  the  law  a  philo- 
sophic mind,  and  to  the  trial  of  causes  in  court 
a  power  of  lucid  exposition  invaluable  alike  with 
the  Bench  and  with  a  jury.  The  law  was  to  him 
a  body  of  symmetrical  doctrine.  He  referred 
everything  to  principles,  the  only  real  foundation 
for  anything.  He  stood  very  high  at  the  Bar, 
for  he  had  learning  and  would  take  immense 
pains,  and  when  he  brought  a  case  into  court  it 


The  American  Defoe  47 

was  a  work  of  art.  Moreover,  he  brought  a 
conscience  with  it.  And  he  was  one  of  the  law- 
yers, none  too  numerous,  to  whom  even  Chief 
Justice  Shaw  listened.  Out  of  many  anecdotes 
I  have  heard  from  him  I  will  choose  one. 

He  had  defended  in  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court  a  man  indicted  for  aiding  in  the  escape  of 
a  fugitive  slave.  "The  case  against  him,"  said 
Dana,  "was  perfectly  clear;  there  was  really  no 
defence;  he  had  beyond  a  doubt  committed  the 
crime  of  helping  rescue  a  man  from  slavery.  I 
looked  for  a  conviction  as  a  matter  of  course. 
But  after  the  judge  had  charged  the  jury,  hour 
after  hour  went  by  and  still  they  stayed  out. 
The  judge  sent  for  them  and  asked  if  they  re- 
quired any  further  guidance  in  law  or  in  fact. 
The  foreman  said  '  No ' ;  but  they  could  not  agree, 
and  finally  were  discharged. 

"Some  years  later,"  said  Dana,  "as  I  stood 
on  the  steps  of  the  Parker  House,  a  man  came  up 
to  me  and  said,  'You  don't  remember  me,  Mr. 
Dana? '     I  did  not,  and  he  went  on: 

"  'Well,  Mr.  Dana,  I  expect  you  remember 
trying  that  case  where  a  man  named  Tucker  was 
indicted  for  aiding  and  abetting  in  the  escape 
of  a  fugitive  slave.  I  was  on  the  jury  in  that 
case.  * 

"At  this  I  instantly  recalled  the  facts,  and 
said:  'Since  you  were  on  that  jury,  I  wish  you 
would  tell  me  what  I  have  always  wanted  to  know 
— why  they  disagreed.' 

"  'Well,  Mr.  Dana,  I  don't  mind  telling  you  we 


48  Anglo-American  Memories 

stood  eleven  to  one  for  conviction,  and  that  one 
obstinate  man  would  n't  budge.  Perhaps  you 
remember  it  was  proved  on  the  trial  that  the 
negro  was  got  away  from  Boston,  taken  to  Con- 
cord, New  Hampshire,  and  there  was  handed  over 
to  a  man  who  drove  him  in  a  sleigh  across  the 
border  into  Canada.' 

"  *0h,  yes,  I  remember  that.* 

"  'Well,  Mr.  Dana,  I  was  the  man  who  drove 
him  in  the  sleigh  across  the  border  into  Canada.'  " 

I  knew  something  of  the  preposterous  charge 
against  Dana,  that  in  editing  Wheaton's  Inter- 
national Law  he  had  appropriated  the  labours  of  a 
dull  predecessor,  Mr.  William  Beach  Lawrence. 
When  President  Grant  nominated  Dana  Minister 
to  England  in  succession  to  that  General  Schenck 
who  is  still  quoted  as  an  authority  on  poker,  the 
Lawrence  charge  was  pressed  before  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations.  It  was  an  ex 
parte  hearing,  and  Dana  had  no  opportunity  to 
defend  himself.  Whether  that  or  the  unsleeping 
malignity  of  General  Butler  did  him  the  more 
harm  I  know  not,  but  President  Grant,  as  his 
honourable  habit  was,  stood  by  his  nominee;  and 
the  Senate  rejected  Dana  by  thirty-one  votes  to 
seventeen.  The  matter  naturally  attracted  atten- 
tion in  England,  and  there  were  comments,  none 
too  just.  I  wrote  a  letter  to  The  Times,  of  which 
Mr.  Delane  was  then  editor.  A  long  letter, 
something  over  a  column,  but  Delane  published  it 
next  morning  in  his  best  type,  first  striking  out 
a  number  of  censorious  sentences  about  Butler 


The  American  Defoe  49 

and  Zach  Chandler  and  other  eminent  persons 
who  had  engineered  Dana's  defeat.  In  my  wish 
to  do  justice  to  Dana  and  upon  his  enemies  I  had 
not  remembered  that  I  was  writing  in  an  Enghsh 
newspaper,  and  had  no  business  to  be  rebuking 
Americans  to  an  English  audience.  When  I 
read  my  letter  and  noted  Delane's  excisions  I 
saw  how  wrong  I  had  been,  and  I  wrote  to  Delane 
to  thank  him  for  suppressing  all  those  ferocities. 
There  came  in  reply  such  a  note  as  only  Delane 
would  have  written. 

"It  is  the  first  time  anybody  ever  thanked  me 
for  using  a  blue  pencil  on  a  correspondent's 
letter.     Thank  you."" 

This  was  in  1876.  Dana's  letter  to  me  on  my 
letter  about  him  was  characteristic.  I  think  I 
might  print  it,  but  it  is  with  other  papers  in  New 
York.  He  was  grateful  and  kindly,  but  also 
critical.  He  was  always  capable  of  looking  at 
his  own  case  as  if  it  were  a  third  person's;  his 
mind  detached  from  everything  that  was  personal 
to  himself.  He  thought  the  legal  points  might 
have  been  pressed.  But  the  public,  especially 
the  English  public,  will  not  have  too  much  law. 
I  suppose  the  Beach-Lawrence  suit  and  the 
Minister-to-England  business  troubled  Dana  more 
than  anything  else  in  his  career.  He  ought,  of 
course,  to  have  been  Minister.  He  would  have 
been  such  a  Minister  as  Charles  Francis  Adams 
was,  or  as  Phelps  was,  two  of  the  American 
Ministers  whom  the  English  liked  best;  out  of 
the  half-dozen  who  have  held  in  this  country  a 


50  Ang^lo-American  JVIemories 


pre-eminent  position  among  Ministers  and  Am- 
bassadors, including  the  present  Ambassador  and 
his  two  immediate  predecessors,  Hay  and  Choate. 
That  brilliant  list  ought  to  have  been  enriched 
with  Dana's  name;  but  it  was  not  to  be. 

Dana  came  abroad  again  in  1878,  and  I  saw 
him  once  more.  He  spent  his  time  chiefly  in 
Paris  and  Rome,  and  died  in  Rome,  January  7th, 
1882.  He  lies  near  Keats  and  Shelley  in  the 
Protestant  cemetery  at  Porte  Pia;  and  there  is  a 
monument.  In  Boston  he  is  remembered ;  whether 
he  is  remembered  elsewhere  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  But  we  cannot,  in  whatever  part  of 
America,  we  cannot  afford  to  forget  a  man  who 
had  all  the  American  virtues  in  one  of  the  heroic 
ages  of  America. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A   VISIT   TO   RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON 

AMONG  the  students  at  Harvard  Law  School 
in  1855  was  WilHam  Emerson,  from  Staten 
Island,  New  York,  nephew  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson.  He  asked  me  one  day  if  I  would  like 
to  know  his  uncle.  I  answered  that  his  uncle 
was  the  one  m.an  whom  I  most  wished  to  meet, 
and,  with  a  word  of  surprise  at  my  fervour,  he 
offered  to  arrange  it. 

In  these  days  his  surprise  may  not  readily  be 
understood.  Emerson  has  long  since  taken  his 
place  among  the  Immortals.  But  at  that  time 
his  place  was  still  uncertain.  The  number  of 
his  followers  was  limited;  or,  as  Carlyle  said, 
fourteen  years  earlier,  "Not  the  great  reading 
public,  but  only  the  small  thinking  public  have 
any  questions  to  ask  concerning  him."  The 
growth  of  the  thinking  mind  toward  Emerson 
had,  during  those  fourteen  years,  been  considerable, 
but  it  was  still,  in  Matthew  Arnold's  phrase,  only 
the  Remnant  to  whom  Emerson  was  a  prophet 
or  an  inspiration.  To  the  majority  he  was  a 
riddle,  and  there  were  not  a  few  of  the  solid  men 
of  Boston  who  thought  him  a  child  of  the  Devil. 
The  Whigism  of  Massachusetts  had  its  religious 

51 


52  Anglo-American  Memories 

side.  To  be  a  good  Whig  and  one  of  the  elect 
you  must  be  an  orthodox  Unitarian. 

The  days  when  Unitarianism  was  to  be  a 
fashionable  religion  in  Boston  were  still  distant. 
Emerson  was  not  even  a  Unitarian;  he  was  an 
Emersonian.  He  not  only  thought  for  himself, 
but  announced  his  thought  from  the  housetops; 
and  to  think  for  oneself  was,  in  those  conservative 
days,  a  dangerous  pastime.  He  came  of  a  race 
of  preachers  on  both  sides,  an  academic  race,  six 
generations  of  them.  For  some  three  years  he 
was  himself  a  preacher,  but  presently  found  he 
could  no  longer  administer  the  Holy  Communion 
to  his  congregation,  and  therefore  resumed  his 
place  as  a  layman.  The  platform  superseded 
the  pulpit.  His  sermons  became  lectures  and 
essays.  He  said  himself,  "My  pulpit  is  the 
lyceum  platform."  He  became  a  transcenden- 
talist,  as  his  enemies  said,  a  name  he  repudiated, 
preferring  to  call  the  transcendental  journal  he 
edited  The  Dial.  It  was  no  less  an  offence  to 
Boston  when  Emerson's  intellectual  independence 
led  him  into  the  company  of  the  Abolitionists, 
though  he  never  wholly  identified  himself  with 
that  rebellious  band.  His  first  series  of  Essays 
had  been  published  as  long  ago  as  184 1 ,  in  America, 
and  in  the  same  year  in  England  with  a  rather 
patronizing  Preface  by  Carlyle.  The  second  series 
appeared  in  1840,  and  the  Poems  in  1846. 

In  the  'fifties,  therefore,  Emerson's  ideas  had 
had  time  to  become  known  to  those  who  liked 
them  least.     I  fell  into  deep  disgrace  with  a  Boston 


A  Visit  to  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson       53 

uncle,  a  lawyer  whose  office  I  afterward  entered, 
first  as  student  and  then  as  practitioner,  when 
he  heard  that  I  had  read  Emerson.  There  was, 
moreover,  an  accomplished  young  lady  who  asked 
me  if  it  was  true  that  I  believed  in  Emerson,  and 
then  desired  to  be  told  what  in  fact  Emerson 
believed  and  taught;  one  of  those  appalling  ques- 
tions which  women  sometimes  put  lightheartedly. 
I  answered  as  briefly  as  I  could,  and  she  retorted 
"I  think  it  perfectly  horrid. "  And  if  that  friend- 
ship did  not  come  to  an  end  it  grew  cold,  which 
I  then  thought  a  misfortune,  and  perhaps  still 
do.  But  society  was  then  intolerant  of  anything 
which  menaced  its  foundations,  or  was  thought 
to.  Rightly,  I  suppose.  Since  all  societies  in 
all  ages  have  wished  to  live,  and  not  die. 

In  the  Law  School  we  did  not  discuss  Emerson; 
we  ignored  him.  I  can  think  of  no  student  at 
that  time  who  had  come  under  his  influence. 
They  were  busy  with  the  law ;  what  was  a  prophet 
to  them?  If  he  had  readers  they  kept  their 
reading  to  themselves.  The  nephew  himself  was 
more  a  nephew  than  a  disciple.  He  told  me  I 
should  find  his  uncle  delightful  to  know.  Pre- 
sently, to  my  delight,  he  brought  me  an  invitation 
to  Concord  for  Saturday  to  Monday.  We  walked 
the  thirteen  miles  from  Cambridge  to  Emerson's 
home,  arriving  in  the  middle  of  Saturday  after- 
noon. Photographs  have  long  since  made  the 
house  familiar,  whether  in  its  original  state,  or 
after  the  fire  in  1872,  and  the  restoration  of  it 
by  his  fellow  townsmen  of  Concord,  and  their 


54  Anglo-American  Memories 

honourable  gift  of  it  to  him.  A  broad  gateway- 
led  to  it  from  the  road,  pine  trees  standing  sentinel 
on  either  side.  Square,  with  a  sloping  roof,  a 
porch  in  the  centre,  two  windows  on  either  side, 
two  stories  in  height;  simple  almost  to  bareness, 
devoid  of  architectural  pretence,  but  well  pro- 
portioned. There  was,  I  think,  an  ell  which  ran 
back  from  the  main  building.  Inside,  your  first 
impression  was  of  spaciousness ;  the  hall  and  rooms 
of  good  size,  not  very  high,  and  furnished  with  an 
eye  mainly  to  comfort;  and  an  easy  staircase. 

We  were  taken  first  into  a  parlour  in  the  rear  of 
the  library  which  filled  one  side  of  the  house.  Em- 
erson's greeting  was  something  more  than  courte- 
ous— ^friendly,  with  a  little  element  of  surprise; 
for  though  he  had  long  been  used  to  pilgrimages 
and  visits  from  admiring  strangers,  to  whom 
his  house  was  a  Mecca,  there  was,  perhaps,  a 
novelty  in  the  coming  of  a  law  student.  A 
pleasant  light,  and  a  strong  light,  in  his  fine  blue 
eyes,  yet  they  looked  at  you  in  an  inquiring, 
penetrating  way  as  if  it  was  their  duty  to  give 
an  account  of  you;  impartial  but  sympathetic. 
You  could  perceive  he  was  predisposed  to  think 
well  of  people.  I  had  seen  Emerson  on  the 
platform,  but  there  his  attitude  was  Hebraic:  in- 
spired and  apostolic.  This  was  the  private  Em- 
erson, the  citizen  of  Concord,  and  first  of  all  the 
host;  intent  before  all  things  on  hospitality.  The 
tall,  twisted  figure  bent  toward  us,  the  grasp 
of  the  hand  was  a  welcome;  the  strong  face  had 
in   it   the   sunshine   of   kindliness;   the   firm   lips 


A  Visit  to  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson       55 

relaxing  into  a  smile.  Delicacy  went  with  his 
strength,  and  with  the  manliness  of  the  man  was 
blended  something  I  can  only  call  feminine,  be- 
cause it  was  exquisite.  Distinction  in  every  line 
and  tone;  a  man  apart  from  other  men.  Free 
from  all  pretence;  of  pretence  he  had  no  need; 
he  was  absolutely  himself,  and  that  was  all  you 
wanted.  There  was  at  first  something  in  his 
manner  you  might  call  shyness  or  uncertainty,  as 
of  a  nature  which  might  be  embarrassed  in  un- 
familiar company  but  would  go  gaily  to  the  stake. 
I  suppose  I  am  collecting  the  impressions  of 
this  and  many  later  meetings  with  Emerson,  but 
I  cannot  distinguish  between  them,  and  it  does 
not  matter.  What  was,  however,  peculiar  to  this 
visit  was  Emerson's  almost  anxious  sense  of  his 
duties  as  host;  which  seemed  not  duties,  but  the 
inevitable  expression  of  a  loving  nature.  When 
he  heard  that  we  had  walked  from  Cambridge  he 
said  we  must  be  tired  and  hungry  and  thirsty.  We 
were  to  sit  down  there  and  then,  we  were  to  eat 
and  drink.  The  philosopher  bustled  gently  about, 
seeking  wine  and  food  in  the  cupboards,  and 
presently  putting  on  the  table  a  decanter  of 
Madeira  and  a  dish  of  plum  cake.  He  was 
solicitous  that  we  should  partake  of  both;  and 
to  that  end  set  us  the  example,  saying:  "I  have 
not  walked  thirteen  miles,  but  I  think  I  can 
manage  to  keep  you  company  at  the  table." 
Then  he  bethought  himself  that  he  seldom  touched 
wine;  "and  indeed  I  sometimes  neither  eat  nor 
drink  from  breakfast  to  supper."     He  began  at 


56  Anglo-American  Memories 

once  with  questionings  about  the  law  school  and 
our  way  of  life  and  study. 

Then  to  our  rooms,  plain,  pleasant  rooms, 
and  then  tea  in  the  library.  Among  the  books 
he  seemed  more  at  home  than  anywhere  else; 
they  had  been  his  lifelong  friends,  for  whom 
he  had  an  affection.  He  asked  again  about 
law  and  the  law  school.  "A  noble  study,"  he 
said,  "one  to  which  you  may  well  devote  a  great 
part  of  your  life  and  mind.  As  you  have  chosen 
it  for  your  profession  I  am  sure  you  will  master  it ; 
a  man  must  know  his  trade  or  he  will  do  nothing. 
But  law  is  not  everything.  It  does  not  perhaps 
make  a  demand  upon  all  the  resources  of  the 
intellect,  nor  enlarge  a  man's  nature."  Which 
was  almost  a  paraphrase  of  Biu"ke's  famous 
sentence  on  the  wall  in  his  eulogy  on  Mr.  Grenville: 

One  of  the  first  and  noblest  of  human  sciences;  a 
science  which  does  more  to  quicken  and  invigorate  the 
understanding  than  all  the  other  kinds  of  learning  put 
together;  but  it  is  not  apt,  except  in  persons  very  happily 
bom,  to  open  and  to  liberalize  the  mind  exactly  in  the 
same  proportion. 

Then  Emerson,  who  seemed  always  to  be 
seeking  the  final  word,  and  to  condense  the 
whole  of  his  thought  into  a  sentence,  added: 
"Keep  your  mind  open.  Read  Plato." 
Those  half-dozen  words  he  uttered  in  the  reson- 
ant tones  of  the  platform ;  tones  which  came  when 
he  was  deeply  stirred  and  desired  to  stir  his 
audience.     They  vibrated  through  the  room  as 


A  Visit  to  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson       57 

they  vibrated  through  a  great  hall;  tones  which 
were  meant  to  find  their  way,  and  did  find  their 
way,  to  the  hearts  of  his  hearers;  an  appeal  to 
the  emotions,  to  the  conscience,  to  whatever 
there  was  in  these  thousands,  or  in  the  single 
individual,  sympathetic  to  the  speaker.  I  have 
never  forgotten  them.  If  I  have  not  followed 
Emerson's  advice  as  he  meant  it,  or  in  full,  I  have 
followed  it  to  a  certain  extent;  desultorily,  in- 
adequately; and  certainly  with  no  settled  purpose 
to  become  a  Platonist,  or  even  an  Emersonian. 
But  it  had  an  effect  and  the  effect  has  been 
permanent. 

One  other  great  thinker,  Pascal,  has  given  the 
same  counsel ;  not  in  words,  but  by  his  perpetual 
example.  You  cannot  read  Pascal  without  seeing 
that  he  never  states  one  side  of  a  case,  but  always 
two  sides.  Even  in  matters  of  faith  he  keeps  an 
open  mind.  In  matters  of  science  it  is  equally 
open;  and  in  all  other  matters.  To  this  day,  it 
is  disputed  whether  Pascal  was  a  believer.  He 
himself  believed  that  he  was,  but  he  was  a  pupil 
of  Montaigne,  and  Montaigne's  motto,  ''Que 
sgais-je?"  is  inwoven  in  every  sentence  of  Pascal's 
speculations  upon  matters  of  faith;  and  upon  all 
les  choses  de  V esprit.  So  I  put  these  two  influences, 
Pascal  and  Emerson,  side  by  side. 

If  this  were  the  place,  a  parallel  might  be 
drawn.  The  Church,  and  for  good  cause,  held 
Pascal  for  an  enemy;  and  the  Puritanism  of  New 
England,  as  well  as  orthodoxy  in  Old  England 
and  elsewhere,  held  Emerson  for  an  enemy;  also 


58  Anglo-American  Memories 

with  good  cause.  Yet  were  they  two  of  the  most 
devout  souls  of  all  time.  Why  should  the  churches 
of  France  and  of  New  England  array  against 
themselves  the  two  finest  minds  of  those  two 
communities,  centuries  apart?  Pascal's  voice 
comes  softly  down  the  intervening  generations — 
"Keep  your  mind  open" — and  Emerson's  is  the 
clear  echo  of  Pascal's,  as  Pascal's  was  of  Alon- 
taigne.  Emerson,  too,  sat  for  a  time  at  the  feet 
of  Montaigne,  chose  him  as  one  of  his  "Repre- 
sentative Men,"  and  said  of  Montaigne's  Essays: 
"It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  myself  written  the 
book  in  some  former  life."  Pascal  had  already 
said:  "Ce  n'est  pas  dans  Montaigne  mais  dans 
moi  que  je  trouve  tout  ce  que  j'y  vois." 

Emerson  had  other  stimulating  suggestions 
ready;  his  talk  overflowed  with  them,  yet  was 
never  didactic.  It  was  as  if  the  suggestions  pre- 
sented themselves  first  to  him  and  then  to  you; 
as  if  he  shared  his  thoughts  with  you;  so  far  was 
he  from  the  method  of  the  pulpit.  Some  errand 
called  him  away.  He  took  down  a  volume  and 
put  it  into  my  hand,  saying:  "Some  day  I  hope 
you  will  learn  to  value  this  writer.  He  has  much 
to  say,  and  he  says  it  in  almost  the  best  English 
of  his  century.  He  is  a  Greek  born  out  of  due 
time" — a  remark  he  has  somewhere  made  about 
Winckelmann.  It  was  Landor;  a  volume  of  the 
Imagmary  Conversations.  I  read  a  dialogue  there 
and  then.  I  have  read  him  ever  since.  I  do 
not  suppose  anybody  cares  what  I  have  read  or 
not  read.     But   I   wish   to   give  you   Emerson's 


A  Visit  to  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson       59 

opinion;  the  advice  he  thought  best  for  a  boy- 
studying  law ;  and  the  effect  of  it  upon  the  boy. 

For  he  would  not  talk  of  what  he  thought  un- 
suited  to  us  two,  or  to  me.  In  a  reminiscence 
or  two  of  his  tour  in  England  in  1846  or  1847  he 
mentioned  a  visit  to  Coleridge.  I  had  read  the 
Table  Talk  and  the  Biographia  Literaria,  and  I 
asked  Emerson  to  tell  me  what  he  and  Coleridge 
had  discussed.  "No,"  he  said,  "it  would  not 
interest  you."  In  the  same  way  next  morning 
when  he  took  me  to  Walden  through  the  woods, 
he  began  upon  trees  and  squirrels  and  other  forest- 
lore;  then  stopped  and  asked:  "But  do  you  know 
about  trees  and  animals?  Do  they  interest  you?'* 
I  had  to  confess  they  did  not ;  upon  which  he  began 
again  on  books  and  matters  of  literature;  and 
upon  Thoreau.  Of  Thoreau  he  did  not  seem  to 
care  to  say  very  much.  But  he  showed  me  the 
lake,  and  where  Thoreau  lived,  and  what  he 
related  of  him,  though  his  appreciation  was 
critical,  was  touched  with  the  kindness  habitual 
to  him.  I  had  read  the  Week  on  the  Concord  and 
Merrimac  Rivers — or  perhaps  read  it  later — and 
Walden,  which  is  thinner,  and  I  had  heard,  then 
or  since,  that  some  of  Thoreau's  admirers  accused 
Emerson  of  borrowing  from  him.  But  there  was 
not  much  to  borrow;  nor,  for  Emerson,  anything. 
The  friendship  between  the  two  men  was  close 
and  lasted  long,  but  if  there  were  any  question 
of  borrowing  or  lending  in  the  books  of  either, 
the  debt  was  not  on  Emerson's  side. 

Now  and  then  as  we  walked  in  the  forest,  or 


6o  Anelo-American  Memories 


'to 


through  the  streets,  we  met  a  farmer  or  other 
resident  of  Concord,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  see 
their  greetings  to  their  great  townsman.  On  the 
heights  he  trod  no  other  set  foot,  but  in  the  daily 
business  and  intercourse  of  life  he  was  each  man's 
friend,  and  each  was  his.  One  of  them  told  me — 
it  was  Rockwood  Hoar,  afterward  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  and  United 
States  Attorney-General — that  half  the  affairs 
of  Concord  were  on  Emerson's  shoulders.  He 
was  the  chosen  adviser,  peacemaker,  arbitrator 
between  these  hard-headed,  practical  people  of 
Concord;  the  man  to  whom  they  went  with  their 
troubles;  the  man  whose  decision  in  difficult 
disputes  was  accepted  without  demur.  "I  don't 
suppose,"  said  Mr.  Hoar,  "that  Emerson  ever 
opened  a  law  book  or  the  Revised  Statutes. 
But  he  had  a  native  shrewdness,  an  eye  for  the 
points  of  a  case,  a  sense  of  equity,  and  a  willing- 
ness to  take  pains  which  made  him  an  ideal 
referee."  I  once  told  an  eminent  Whig  who  had 
been  abusing  Emerson  as  a  mere  visionary,  that 
his  neighbours,  who  knew  him  best,  trusted  him 
in  this  way.  ''They  are  welcome  to  him," 
growled  the  eminent  Whig. 

He  also  was  welcome  to  them.  He  was  the 
possession  and  pride  of  Concord;  beloved  by  the 
people  among  whom  he  lived  his  life.  I  suppose 
his  lines  about  the  embattled  farmers  who  fired 
the  shot  heard  round  the  world,  are  better  known 
and  have  thrilled  more  hearts  than  any  others 
he  ever  wrote.     They  seemed  to  be  always  on 


A  Visit  to  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson       6i 

Concord  lips.  Yes,  but  Emerson  himself  had 
fired  another  shot  heard  round  the  world ;  or  round 
so  much  of  it  as  speaks  the  English,  or  Anglo- 
American,  tongue.  So  when  misfortune  befell 
him,  and  his  house  was  half  burnt,  and  his  health 
failed,  they  besought  him  to  go  abroad  for  rest; 
and  while  he  was  gone  they  rebuilt  his  house  for 
him;  in  the  exact  similitude  of  the  old.  He  was 
gone  a  year,  all  but  two  months,  with  his  daughter 
Ellen,  the  true  child  of  her  father  and  his  most 
faithful  and  helpful  friend.  When  Emerson  re- 
turned. Concord  turned  out  to  greet  him,  built 
a  triumphal  arch  beneath  which  he  had,  perhaps 
reluctantly,  to  pass;  and  so  reinstalled  him  in  his 
old-new  home. 

This,  of  course,  was  long  after  the  time  of  which 
I  am  writing;  in  1872-3.  But  when  he  came  to 
England,  he  knew  that  his  friends  in  Concord  were 
rebuilding  his  house.  He  could  not  speak  of  it 
without  emotion.  His  state  of  health  was  such 
that  emotion  was  hurtful  to  him,  and  his  daughter 
used  to  ask  us  not  to  refer  to  the  house.  But 
whether  we  did  or  not,  Emerson  brooded  over  it, 
and  was  better  and  happier  in  the  thought  of  his 
friends'  friendship  for  him. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EMERSON  IN  ENGLAND — ENGLISH  TRAITS — EMERSON 
AND  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

EMERSON'S  last  visit  to  England  was  made 
in  1873,  after  his  health  had  failed.  He  had 
been  in  Egypt  and  on  the  Continent,  hoping  to 
recover  the  freshness  of  his  mental  powers;  but 
that  was  not  to  be.  In  London  he  and  his  daughter 
Ellen,  who  gave  to  her  father  a  loving  devotion 
without  limits,  lived  in  apartments  in  Down 
Street,  Piccadilly.  It  was  only  too  evident  that, 
even  after  ten  months  of  rest  and  travel,  he  was 
an  invalid  in  mind.  He  could  not  recollect  names 
• — a  failing  common  in  advanced  age,  of  course, 
but  Emerson  was  only  in  his  seventieth  year 
and  was  to  live  ten  years  more.  He  resorted  to 
all  kinds  of  paraphrases  and  circumlocutions. 
"One  of  the  men  who  seemed  to  me  the  most 
sincere  and  clear-minded  I  have  met  was — you 
know  whom  I  mean,  I  met  him  at  your  house,  the 
biologist,  the  champion  of  Darwin — ^with  what 
lucid  energy  he  talked  to  us. "  When  I  mentioned 
Huxley's  name,  Emerson  said,  "Yes,  how  could 
I  forget  him?"  But  presently  the  name  had  to 
be  given  to  him  again.     The  power  of  association 

62 


Emerson  in  England  63 

between  people  or  things  and  the  names  of  them 
had  been  lost.  He  was  always,  said  the  critics, 
a  little  deconsu;  sentences,  they  insisted,  suc- 
ceeded each  other  without  much  obvious  con- 
nection, or  without  the  copula  which  would  have 
brought  them  into  their  true  relation. 

The  truth  is,  he  gave  his  reader  credit  for  a 
little  imaginative  power.  He  took  him  into 
partnership.  He  was  mindful  of  Voltaire's  pun- 
gent epigram:  ^^Uart  d'etre  ennuyeux,  c'est  Vart 
de  tout  dire/^  He  had  his  own  theory  of 
style  and  of  diction.  His  temperament  left  him 
no  choice.  If  his  quickness  of  transition  from 
one  subject  to  another,  or  from  one  thought  to 
another,  left  some  of  his  readers  toiling  after  him 
in  vain,  they  were  not  the  readers  for  whom  he 
wrote.  Why  should  they  read  him  if  he  wrote 
a  language  to  them  unknown? 

The  interview  between  Huxley  and  himself 
to  which  Emerson  referred  was  at  breakfast;  for 
breakfasts  were  then  given  almost  as  often  as 
luncheons  are  now.  There  were  a  dozen  or  so 
people  to  meet  him;  men  and  women.  I  intro- 
duced each  of  them  as  they  arrived.  In  each 
case  they  had  been  asked  to  make  Emerson's 
acquaintance,  but  to  some  of  them  Emerson  was 
an  unknown  name;  or,  if  not  wholly  unknown, 
called  up  in  their  minds  no  clear  image  of  the  man 
or  knowledge  of  his  life's  work.  "Tell  me  who 
he  is."  ''Tell  me  what  he  has  done."  "Is  he 
English  or  American?"  But  I  suppose  there 
never  has  been  a  time  when  a  knowledge  of  litera- 


64  Anglo-American  Memories 

ture,  or  of  great  spiritual  influences,  has  been  an 
indispensable  passport  to  social  position.  Nor 
was  it  because  Emerson  was  an  American  that 
he  was  unfamiliar  to  these  delightful  and,  in 
many   ways,    accomplished   women. 

Years  afterward,  in  1888,  I  was  engaged  to 
lunch  on  the  day  when  news  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
death  had  come.  Arnold  had  been  so  good  a 
friend  to  me  that  I  did  not  like  going  on  this 
first  moment  to  such  an  entertainment,  but  I 
thought  the  talk  would  turn  on  Arnold,  and  I 
went.  My  hostess  was  a  woman  renowned  in 
the  world,  or  in  her  world,  for  great  qualities, 
known  to  everybody,  and  I  should  have  thought 
knowing  everybody  who  had,  as  Arnold  had,  a 
place  both  in  letters  and  in  society.  I  referred 
to  his  sudden  death.  ''Ah,  yes,"  she  answered, 
"an  American,  was  he  not?"  That  may  be  set 
off  against  the  unacquaintance  of  these  other 
ladies  with  Emerson. 

What  Emerson  cared  for  was  to  meet  the  men 
and  women  who  stood  in  some  spiritual  or  in- 
tellectual relation  to  him;  or  who  were  his  disciples. 
Mr.  Alexander  Ireland,  in  his  biographical  sketch 
of  Emerson,  quotes  an  illustrative  story.  It  was 
in  Edinburgh,  this  same  year,  and  Dr.  William 
Smith,  President  of  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical 
Association,  was  driving  him  about  that  wonderful 
city.  Dr.  Smith  had  told  him  of  "  a  worthy  trades- 
man in  Nicholas  Street  who  is  his  enthusiastic 
admirer."  When  Emerson  heard  of  it,  he  pro- 
posed   to    call    on    him.     They    stopped    at    the 


Emerson  in  England  65 

"worthy  tradesman's,"  and  Dr.  Smith  went  into 

the  shop  and  said:  "Mr.  ,  Mr.  Emerson  is 

at  the  door  and  will  be  glad  to  see  you  for  a  few 
minutes."  "The  five  minutes  were  well  spent," 
adds  Dr.  Smith;  and  the  disciple  was  happy 
for  the  rest  of  his  life.  It  was  characteristic  of 
Emerson,  and  of  Emerson  as  an  American.  Very 
likely  he  did  not  quite  understand  how  immense 
is  the  gulf  which  in  this  country  separates  the 
man  who  stands  behind  a  counter  from  the  man 
who  stands  in  front  of  the  counter.  If  he  had 
understood,  he  would  not  have  cared.  What  he 
cared  for  was  the  point  of  contact,  and  of  dis- 
cipleship.  It  was  the  master  who  sought  his 
pupil,  because  he  was  his  pupil. 

During  Emerson's  too  brief  stay  in  London  I 
called  often  in  Down  Street.  Miss  Ellen  was 
anxious  to  protect  her  father  against  the  pressure 
from  many  quarters  for  public  addresses,  and  to 
decline  as  many  private  invitations  as  possible. 
At  Oxford  it  was  the  same,  but  neither  in  Oxford 
nor  London  did  Emerson  lecture  except  briefly 
at  Mr.  Thomas  Hughes's  Working-men's  College. 
Between  him  and  Tom  Hughes — ^he  was  never 
called  anything  else — there  was  not  very  much 
in  common  except  sterling  qualities  of  character. 
Hughes  was  a  good  and  amiable  Philistine,  Eng- 
lish to  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  who  wrote  one  book, 
Tom  Brown's  Schooldays,  which  is  immortal,  and 
half  a  dozen  others  that  are  dead  or  were  never 
really  alive.  But  Hughes  was  one  of  our  friends 
in  the  black  days  when  we  had  few  in  England, 


66  Anglo-American  Memories 

working-men  excepted;  and  Emerson  was  too 
good  a  patriot  to  forget  that;  and  too  much  a 
lover  of  manliness  in  men  not  to  like  one  who 
had  that  supreme  trait  in  a  high  degree,  as  Hughes 
had.  So  he  made  the  exception  in  his  favour,  for 
the  Working-men's  College  was  an  institution  of 
high  usefulness,  in  which  Hughes's  heart  was 
bound  up.  As  for  society,  Emerson  was  an  in- 
valid, and  able  on  that  ground  to  decline  invi- 
tations without  offence.  He  had  studied  English 
society,  as  one  form  of  English  life,  when  here 
in  1848;  and  was  content  with  that  experience. 
"I  do  not  care  for  classes,"  he  said. 

The  nineteenth  century  produced  two  supremely 
good  books  on  American  and  on  English  civiliza- 
tion: Tocqueville's  De  la  Democratie  en  Ameriqiie 
and  Emerson's  English  Traits,  published  in  1856. 
Tocqueville's  book,  published  in  1835,  remains 
the  best  book  on  the  United  States  for  the  student 
who  cares  to  get  down  to  the  foundation  of  things ; 
who  cares  more  for  ideas,  tendencies,  and  prin- 
ciples than  for  details.  Of  Emerson's  the  same 
thing  may  be  said,  yet  no  two  treatises  could  be 
more  unlike  than  those  of  the  Frenchman  and 
the  American. 

But  all  I  wish  now  to  point  out  is  the  effect 
of  English  Traits  upon  the  English  themselves. 
Roughly  speaking,  it  puzzled  them.  It  is  one 
of  the  truest  books  ever  written.  Yet  to  the 
English  themselves  its  truth  has  never  appeared 
quite  true.  On  Emerson,  as  thinker,  poet,  philo- 
sopher, all  kinds  of  judgments  have  been  formed 


Emerson  in  England  67 

in  England,  and  expressed,  in  some  cases,  with 
vehemence.  He  has  always  had  an  audience 
and  a  following  here;  and  always  enemies.  But 
the  book  they  least  understand  is  the  book  about 
themselves.  Looking  into  the  egregious  Alli- 
bone  for  an  apt  quotation  concerning  the  Traits 
I  find  none,  but  instead  a  remark  by  Allibone 
himself  that  "Mr.  Emerson's  writings  have 
excited  considerable  interest  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic!"  The  space  given  to  Emerson  in  the 
Dictionary  of  English  Literature  is  less  than  a 
column,  though  fourteen  columns  are  not  thought 
too  many  for  Longfellow;  nor  are  they.  In  the 
Supplement  Emerson  gets  a  little  more  attention; 
still  grudgingly  given. 

Allibone  does  not  matter,  and  the  perplexity 
of  the  Philistine  struggling  with  a  book  he  cannot 
understand  does  not  matter.  But  let  us  go  at 
once  to  the  best  of  English  critics;  to  Matthew 
Arnold.  Alas!  we  fare  no  better.  Arnold's  Dis- 
course on  Emerson  has  been  resented  by  Emer- 
sonians  as  an  elaborate  disparagement  of  their 
Master.  It  is  not  that.  Arnold  was  incapable 
of  disparagement,  and  while  he  denies  to  Emerson 
many  gifts  which  his  readers  find  in  him,  his 
appreciation  is  still  sympathetic,  and  he  lifts 
himself  to  own  from  time  to  time  Emerson's 
real  greatness.  He  thinks  the  Essays  "the  most 
important  work  done  in  prose  in  our  language" 
during  the  last  century — "more  important  than 
Carlyle's. "  But  he  puts  aside  the  English  Traits 
because,  compared  with  Montaigne,  La  Bruyere, 


68  Anglo-American  Memories 

Addison  (!),  the  Traits  will  not  stand  the  com- 
parison. 

"Emerson's  observation  has  not  the  disinter- 
ested quality  of  the  observation  of  these  masters. 
It  is  the  observation  of  a  man  systematically- 
benevolent,  as  Hawthorne's  observation  in  Our 
Old  Home  is  the  work  of  a  man  chagrined." 

And  Arnold  explains  that  Emerson's  systematic 
benevolence  comes  from  his  persistent  optimism. 
The  book  is  too  good-natured  to  be  scientific. 
Yet,  oddly  enough — or  perhaps  not  oddly — ^the 
criticism  of  the  English  Philistine  is  the  exact 
opposite  of  Arnold's.  The  man  in  the  street,  if 
he  has  read  the  English  Traits,  complains  that 
the  criticism  of  things  English  is  too  relentless; 
that  Emerson  always  has  the  scalpel  and  the 
probe  in  hand;  that  the  inquiry  is  not  critical  but 
anatomical;  and  the  atmosphere  that  of  the 
dissecting  room.  He  is  appalled  when  he  sees 
the  most  cherished  beliefs  of  centuries  and  blended 
races  put  under  the  microscope,  and  when  Char- 
acter, Aristocracy,  Plutocracy,  the  Church,  Re- 
ligion itself  are  made  to  take  off  their  masks  and 
yield  up  their  secrets.  They  are  not  conciliated 
even  when  Emerson  simis  up  the  English  as  ''the 
best  of  actual  races."  What  care  they  for  com- 
parisons with  other  races,  or  for  the  opinion  of 
other  races,  or  of  transatlantic  critics  upon  England 
and  the  English  and  the  institutions  of  this  little 
island?  Emerson's  criticism  is  chemical,  it  re- 
solves things  into  their  elements,  their  primordial 
atoms.     No  doubt,  but  neither   the  Throne  nor 


Emerson  in  England  69 

the  Church  is  shaken,  nor  a  single  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment repealed. 

Arnold,  recalling  the  influences  which  wrought 
upon  him  as  a  student  at  Oxford  "amid  the  last 
enchantments  of  the  Middle  Ages,"  said  to  an 
American  audience  in  Emerson's  **own  delightful 
town,"  Boston: 

"He  was  your  Newman,  your  man  of  soul  and 
genius  visible  to  you  in  the  flesh,  speaking  to 
your  bodily  ears,  a  present  object  for  your  heart 
and  imagination.  That  is  surely  the  most  potent 
of  all  influences!     Nothing  can  come  up  to  it." 

And  that  is  the  influence  which  descended 
beneficially  upon  us  of  a  past  or  passing  generation, 
to  whom  it  was  given  to  see  Emerson  and  to  hear 
him.  As  I  think  it  all  over,  I  begin  to  doubt 
whether  to  have  heard  Emerson  on  the  platform 
did  not  bring  you  a  sense  of  greater  intimacy 
than  to  have  known  him  even  in  his  Concord 
home. 

There  was  a  time,  during  Theodore  Parker's 
illness  and  absence,  when  Emerson  and  Wendell 
Phillips  used  to  take  his  place  at  stated  intervals 
— in  both  cases,  I  think,  once  a  month.  Before 
the  great  audience  of  the  Music  Hall,  Emerson 
had  precisely  the  same  manner  as  with  a  few 
hundred  people.  He  hardly  seemed  to  be  aware 
of  his  audience.  He  stood  there  behind  Parker's 
desk,  towering  above  it,  his  slight  figure  adjusting 
itself  to  whatever  attitude  suited  his  mood  for 
the  moment;  never  quite  erect;  the  body  never 
quite  straight;  the  hands  fumbling  with  his  manu- 


70  Anoxic- American  Memories 


script;  turning  over  a  dozen  leaves  at  a  time; 
turning  back  again  another  dozen,  as  if  it  scarce 
mattered  in  what  order  he  read.  Often  he  skipped ; 
the  large  quarto  pages  were  turned  by  the  score 
and  there  was  no  return.  His  mind  seemed  to  be 
carrying  on  processes  of  thought  quite  independent 
of  those  he  had  inscribed  on  his  manuscript.  He 
felt  his  way  with  his  hearers;  and  his  uncon- 
sciousness of  their  presence  was  therefore  apparent 
only.  Between  them  and  him  there  was  the  flow 
of  invisible,  mysterious  currents,  whether  of 
sympathy  or  antipathy.  In  Mr.  Gladstone's  fine 
image,  they  gave  back  to  him  in  vapour  what  he 
poured  out  in  a  flood  upon  them.  But  that,  of 
course,  was  far  more  completely  true  of  an  orator 
like  Mr.  Gladstone  than  of  a  lecturer  like  Emerson 
who  read  his  discourse.  But  it  was  true  in  a 
measure  of  Emerson  also. 

But  Emerson  was  an  orator  too.  He  was  not 
always  above  the  arts  of  the  orator.  He  could, 
and  did,  calculate  his  effects;  observing  the  while 
whether  they  told  or  not.  He  delighted  in  a 
crescendo.  His  voice  rose  and  fell  and  rose  again ; 
and  he  had  unsuspected  depths  of  resonant  tone. 
At  one  moment  clear  and  cold,  then  vibrating 
with  emotion,  in  which  the  whole  force  of  the 
man  seemed  to  seek  expression;  then  sometimes 
at  the  very  end  becoming  prophetic,  appealing, 
menacing;  till  the  sentences  came  as  if  from  the 
Judgment  seat.  He  once  read  Allingham's  poem, 
"The  Talisman,"  as  the  peroration  of  his  address 
in  the  Music  Hall.     I  never  heard  anything  like 


Emerson  in  England  71 


it— like  the  wild,  strange  melody  of  his  voice, 
which  had  in  it  the  intonations  and  cadences 
which  give  to  many  Slavic  airs,  and  most  of  all 
to  the  Hungarian  Czardas,  though  that  is  dance 
music,  a  magic  charm. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  prejudice  against  Emerson 
which  prevailed  in  Boston  and  elsewhere.  It 
was  most  vehement  in  society.  That  worshipful 
company,  which  is  necessarily  a  minority  and 
prides  itself  on  being  a  minority,  likes  to  set  its 
own  standards  and  expects  the  rest  of  the  world, 
so  far  as  it  comes  in  contact  with  these  social 
law-givers,  to  conform  to  these  standards.  They 
soon  became  aware  that  to  no  standard  but  his 
own  did  Emerson  ever  conform;  save  so  far  as 
civility  and  kindness  bade  him.  He  gave  way 
readily  enough  in  little  things.  It  is  a  sign  of 
greatness  to  hold  little  things  of  little  account ;  an 
aphorism  by  no  means  universally  accepted. 

However,  it  was  not  Emerson's  manners  to 
which  society  objected,  or  could  ever  object. 
He  had  the  manners  of  a  king,  without  the  de- 
mands of  a  king.  He  was  a  republican  king.  He 
stood  for  equality,  in  the  sense  that  he  looked 
down  on  no  man.  The  society  view  is  different. 
Societ^T-  exists  in  order  to  look  down  on  all  who  are 
not  within  its  sacred  circle.  They  must  be  in- 
ferior because  they  are  outside.  But  its  objection 
to  Emerson  lay  deeper.  It  recognized  in  him 
the  natural  enemy  of  privilege  and  prerogative. 
There  were  distinguished  members  of  this  dis- 
tinguished body  who  regarded  a  man  who  took 


72  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  liberty  of  examining  the  substructure  on 
which  all  societies  are  built  as  an  anarchist. 
They  were  afraid  of  him.  They  thought  it  safer 
to  exclude  him.  By  and  by,  they  compromised. 
Is  not,  or  was  not,  Boston  the  Home  of  Culture? 
So,  as  Emerson's  fame  grew,  the  exclusion  policy 
was  seen  to  be  feeble.  But  when  the  closed  doors 
were  opened,  what  was  the  astonishment  of  these 
excellent  persons  to  discover  that  Emerson  did 
not  seem  to  care  whether  they  were  open  or 
closed.  He  had  his  own  life  to  live,  and  lived  it, 
serenely  aloof. 

Nothing  dies  so  hard  as  a  prejudice.  I  have 
one  of  my  own  which  lives  in  spite  of  my  affection 
for  Emerson,  and  my  many  debts  to  him,  and 
my  gratitude  that  he  gave  me  a  little  of  his  friend- 
ship. I  mean  that  on  a  too  young  mind  he  had, 
or  might  have,  an  influence  not  entirely  for  good. 
He  set  his  ideals  so  high  that,  as  you  looked  up 
to  him  and  them,  your  feet  sometimes  went  astray, 
or  stumbled.  He  taught  you,  though  he  may 
not  have  meant  it,  to  underrate  precision  of 
knowledge,  and  the  value  of  details.  When  the 
things  of  the  spirit  and  the  spiritual  life  mattered 
so  much,  how  could  it  be  worth  while  to  know  all 
the  tenses  of  Greek  verbs  or  to  be  aware  of  the 
rudiments  of  toe  in  the  palaeontological  horse? 
There  are  sentences  and  pages  in  The  Conduct  of 
Life  and  elsewhere  which  refute  this  view,  and  I 
do  not  press  it.  But  I  know  the  effect,  not  of 
this  or  that  essay,  but  of  Emerson's  attitude 
toward  education,  and  his  philosophic  indifference 


Emerson  in  England  73 

to  all  but  what  is  highest  in  thought.  And  I 
think  even  to-day  I  would  not  put  his  books  into 
the  hands  of  a  boy  who  had  not  settled  views 
about  learning,  and  a  conviction  of  the  invincible 
necessity  of  an  accurate  method. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A    GROUP    OF    BOSTON    LAWYERS — MR.    OLNEY    AND 
VENEZUELA 

A  NAME  still  remembered  in  Massachusetts  is 
that  of  Judge  Thomas  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  the  court  of  highest  jurisdiction  in  that 
State,  and  one  of  the  few  State  courts  whose 
decisions  have  always  been  cited  with  respect  in 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It  was 
recruited  largely  from  the  Suffolk  Bar.  The 
Boston  Bar  was  known  as  the  Suffolk  Bar,  the 
name  of  the  county.  But,  of  course,  other  parts 
of  the  State  supplied  judges,  and  Worcester 
County  was  one.  Judge  Thomas  lived  and  prac- 
tised law  in  the  town  of  Worcester.  He  practised 
politics  also,  of  a  very  energetic  kind,  being  a 
good  platform  speaker  and  a  good  organizer. 
There  used  to  be  a  story  that  one  morning,  in 
the  heat  of  an  exciting  campaign,  Thomas  knelt 
at  family  prayers  and  began  his  invocation  to 
the  Almighty:  "Fellow-citizens  and  Whigs  of 
Worcester  County." 

However  that  may  be,  he  was  a  successful 
lawyer,  a  successful  judge,  and  had  attractive 
qualities  not  always  to  be  found  at  the  Bar.     I 

74 


A  Group  of  Boston  Lawyers  75 

will  tell  you  in  a  moment  in  what  way  he  connects 
himself  permanently  with  national  and  inter- 
national history.  I  came  to  know  about  it 
because  it  was  before  Judge  Thomas  that  I  tried, 
at  nisi  prius,  and  lost,  my  first  case  in  the  Supreme 
Court.  When  the  jury  had  delivered  their  wrong- 
ful verdict,  and  been  sent  about  their  business, 
Judge  Thomas  called  me  up  and  spoke  to  me  with 
a  kindness  I  have  never  forgotten.  He  thought 
I  had  tried  my  case  well,  told  me  I  should  do  well 
at  the  Bar,  and  offered,  very  generously,  to  help 
me  if  he  could.  After  a  time  he  resigned  his  seat 
on  the  Bench  and  went  into  practice  in  Boston. 
A  little  later  I  called  on  him  and  asked  whether 
he  had  room  for  a  junior  in  his  office.  ''There 
would  have  been  room  if  you  had  applied  earlier, " 
said  Judge  Thomas.  "But  I  have  just  been 
told  by  my  daughter  that  she  has  engaged  herself 
to  a  young  lawyer,  and  he  is  to  have  the  place  I 
should  otherwise  have  been  glad  to  offer  you." 

The  name  of  that  young  lawyer  was  Richard 
Olney.  It  fell  to  my  lot  to  see  something  of  him 
in  Washington  forty  years  later,  when  he  was 
Secretary  of  State  under  President  Cleveland. 
I  saw  him  for  some  weeks,  during  the  height  of 
the  Venezuela  crisis,  almost  daily.  Whether  I 
shall  ever  be  allowed  to  tell  the  whole  story  of 
what  went  on  during  those  weeks  I  do  not  know. 
If  I  were  Mr.  Olney  I  would  give  my  assent  to 
the  publishing  of  a  complete  statement.  I  say 
that  because,  in  my  judgment,  we  owe  it  to  Mr. 
Olney — and    among    Americans    to    him    only — 


76  Anglo-American  Memories 

that  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty  in  which  President 
Cleveland's  Message  had  landed  us  was  ultimately 
found.  I  know  how  it  was  found,  and  except 
Mr.  Olney  himself,  I  don't  think  any  other  Amer- 
ican knows.  I  am  aware  of  the  explanations 
which  Mr.  Cleveland  published  in  The  Century 
Magazine,  and  I  think  them  models  of  uninten- 
tional disingenuousness.  Moreover,  I  had  means 
of  knowing  what  was  said  and  done  on  this  side, 
in  England,  in  the  Foreign  Office  and  elsewhere, 
during  those  dangerous  weeks;  and  I  know  why 
the  settlement  was  postponed  till  next  summer, 
when  the  American  people,  at  white  heat  during 
December,  1895,  and  January,  1896,  had  cooled 
off  and  forgotten  there  was  any  crisis  at  all. 

But  if  I  never  had  a  chance  of  saying  more, 
I  wish  to  say  now  that  Mr.  Olney  did  a  great 
service  to  his  country,  and  to  both  coimtries;  one 
of  the  greatest  ever  done  by  any  man  in  his 
position,  or  in  almost  any  position.  I  think  Mr. 
Cleveland  became  aware  that  he  had  acted  rashly 
and  with  no  full  knowledge  of  the  history  of  that 
boundary-line  between  British  Guiana  and  Vene- 
zuela which  he  announced  to  the  world  his  inten- 
tion to  re-draw  to  suit  himself,  with  menace  of 
war  to  Great  Britain.  I  don't  forget  Mr.  Olney's 
share  in  the  dispatch  of  July,  1895,  which  began 
the  trouble.  He  and  Mr.  Cleveland  concocted 
that  extraordinary  document  between  them  at 
Gray  Gables.  I  suppose  he  knew  also  of  Mr. 
Cleveland's  Message  to  Congress,  December  12th, 
and    perhaps    approved    of   it — indeed,    he   must 


A  Group  of  Boston  Lawyers  77 

have  approved  of  it  or  resigned.  He  must  also 
have  been  responsible  for  the  second  dispatch 
calling  upon  Lord  Salisbury  to  send  an  answer 
to  the  July  dispatch  before  the  meeting  of  Congress 
in  December;  a  demand  perhaps  unprecedented  as 
between  two  Powers  of  the  first  rank.  I  know, 
too,  that  some  of  Mr.  Olney's  language  gave 
offence.  Lord  Salisbury  thought  him  rude;  an 
impression  due  mainly  to  the  different  uses  made 
of  the  English  language  in  Washington  and  in 
London,  and  to  the  non-existence  in  Washington, 
at  that  time,  of  that  diplomatic  freemasonry,  in 
both  speech  and  act,  and  of  those  diplomatic 
conventionalities  which  prevail  in  other  important 
capitals  of  the  world. 

All  that — and  there  is  more — only  emphasizes 
the  delicacy  with  which  Mr.  Olney  subsequently 
handled  the  dispute  which  Mr.  Cleveland  had 
envenomed.  A  new  period  in  the  negotiations 
began.  I  shall  venture  to  say,  even  though  Mr. 
Olney,  out  of  loyalty  to  his  President  might  refuse 
to  admit  it,  that  with  the  New  Year  of  1896  the 
conduct  of  the  negotiations  passed  into  his  hands. 
That  he  reported  to  the  President  what  was  going 
on  I  don't  doubt.  But  a  new  spirit  prevailed. 
The  tone  which  had  been  so  offensive  in  the 
original  dispatch,  and  still  more  in  the  Message 
to  Congress,  was  dropped.  Mr.  Olney  had 
a  wonderful  flexibility  of  mind.  When  he  saw 
that  one  set  of  tactics  had  failed,  he  was  quick 
to  try  another,  and  not  only  to  try  another  but 
to  recognize  the  need  of  a  wholly  new  departure. 


78  Anglo-American  Memories 

He  was  equally  quick  in  invention,  in  devising 
expedients,  in  looking  at  facts  with  a  fresh  pair 
of  eyes.  A  trained  diplomatist  he  was  not,  but 
in  this  emergency  he  showed  the  qualities  of  a 
trained  diplomatist;  the  resource,  the  tact,  the 
fertility,  and  the  power  of  divining  what  was  in 
his  adversary's  mind. 

Lord  Salisbury's  was  not  an  easy  mind  to 
divine.  He  had  the  gift  of  silence,  and  to  a  still 
more  remarkable  degree  the  gift  of  enveloping 
his  thought  in  that  language  of  diplomacy  which, 
as  I  said,  was  not  at  that  time  a  language  very 
well  understood  in  America.  But  Mr.  Olney 
guessed  pretty  accurately  at  Lord  Salisbury's 
purpose,  and  they  carried  on  their  exchange  of 
views  without  very  great  friction.  The  truth  is, 
both  were  bent  on  finding  a  solution.  The  point 
in  which  Lord  Salisbury  had  the  advantage  was 
patience.  Mr.  Olney  was  under  some  pressure. 
Lord  Salisbury  was  not.  Americans  will,  I  think, 
do  well  to  bear  in  mind  that,  after  Prince  Bis- 
marck's death.  Lord  Salisbury  was  regarded 
throughout  Europe  as  a  higher  authority,  with 
a  more  commanding  influence,  than  any  Foreign 
Minister  then  in  power.  He  had  immense  ex- 
perience, immense  knowledge,  an  immense  power 
of  work,  and  fine  natural  gifts  perfected  by  long 
practice.  There  were  not  many  Ministers  who 
transacted  great  affairs  with  Lord  Salisbury  on 
even  terms.     But  Mr.  Olney  was  one  of  them. 

I  find  myself,  however,  going  further  than  I 
meant   to.     I   meant   no   more   than   to   put   on 


A  Group  of  Boston  Lawyers  79 

record,  before  it  is  too  late,  the  testimony  of  an 
eye-witness,  and  my  belief  that,  but  for  Mr. 
Olney,  there  might  have  been  a  very  different 
ending  to  the  quarrel  upon  which  President 
Cleveland  entered  in  his  over-confident,  clumsy 
way.  I  have  departed  from  the  order  of  time 
in  these  "Memories."  I  must  often  depart 
from  it;  I  cannot  begin  a  story  and  leave  it  half 
told  because  the  end  belongs  to  later  years. 

Mr.  Olney  has  made  so  great  a  name  and  place 
for  himself  at  the  Bar,  as  well  as  in  the  State 
Department,  that  no  testimony  or  tribute  can 
be  of  much  importance  to  him.  But  it  is  im- 
portant to  me  to  offer  it.  A  debt  of  gratitude 
may  be  easily  borne,  often  much  too  easily; 
but  if  it  can  never  be  repaid  it  can  be  acknow- 
ledged, and  I  acknowledge  mine  to  Mr.  Olney  at 
the  same  time  that  I  remind  others  of  what  they 
also  owe  him. 

I  do  not  regret  having  had  to  give  way  to  Mr. 
Olney  in  Judge  Thomas's  office.  If  I  had  been 
admitted  into  that  coveted  place,  I  should  have 
stayed  in  Boston  and  at  the  Bar,  and  perhaps 
have  had  a  prosperous  professional  life.  But  I 
should  not  have  had  the  kind  of  experience 
which  has  made  life  interesting  to  me  in  so  many 
various  ways,  and  which  I  am  now  trying  to  make 
interesting  to  others. 

Mr.  Rockwood  Hoar,  afterward  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States,  whose  name  I  have 
mentioned  earlier,  was  counsel  for  the  other  side 
in  my  Supreme   Court   case.     If  my  client  had 


8o  Anglo-American  Memories 

had  a  good  defence,  which  perhaps  he  had  not, 
a  novice  at  the  Bar  had  Httle  chance  against  a 
man  with  the  learning  and  force  of  Mr.  Hoar. 
He  had,  however,  a  spirit  of  scrupulous  fairness. 
No  man  ever  suspected  Rockwood  Hoar  of  un- 
worthy devices.  He  was  too  able  to  need  them 
and  too  honest  to  use  them.  But  he  tried  ex- 
periments, as  every  lawyer  does.  He  put  a 
question  to  a  witness  which  I  thought  innocent 
enough,  but  a  friendly  lawyer  who  sat  near  called 
to  me  in  a  stage  whisper,  ''Object."  So  I  ob- 
jected, not  the  least  knowing  why.  The  judge 
looked  to  Mr.  Hoar.  "Surely,"  said  Mr.  Hoar, 
"my  friend  will  not  press  his  objection."  Not 
knowing  what  else  to  say,  I  said  I  would  withdraw 
the  objection  if  Mr.  Hoar  would  say  he  thought 
the  question  competent.  The  judge  smiled,  and 
Mr.  Hoar  smiled  at  my  ingenuousness,  and  said, 
"Well,  I  will  ask  the  witness  another  question." 

Mr.  Horace  Gray  was  at  that  time  reporter 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts.  After 
he  had  become  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  I  used  to  meet  him  in  Wash- 
ington.    One  day  he  said  to  me: 

"You  used  to  practise  law  in  Boston." 

"Yes." 

"I  think  we  must  have  met.  I  must  have  seen 
you  in  court.  You  tried  a  case  in  the  Supreme 
Court  before  Judge  Thomas.  Stop  a  moment. 
I  can  tell  you  the  name  of  the  case.  You  argued 
it  afterward  before  the  full  bench.  It  was  Krebs 
V.  Oliver." 


A  Group  of  Boston  Lawyers  8i 

And  it  was.  Forty  years  had  passed.  Mr. 
Justice  Gray  had  what  may  be  called  a  memory. 
He  had  much  else:  an  inexhaustible  knowledge  of 
case  law;  a  power  of  dealing  readily  with  complex 
matters;  a  fast  hold  of  principles;  an  industry 
without  limit;  the  cordial  respect  of  his  fellow 
judges;  and  a  pleasant  house  in  Washington 
whereof  the  hostess  was  one  of  Washington's 
favourites.  And  he  had  a  stature  of  somewhere 
between  six  and  seven  feet,  with  a  smiling  face 
and  massive  head  to  crown  this  huge  frame.  He 
is  gone.     I  wish  he  were  not. 

Of  the  many  members  of  this  brilliant  Suffolk 
Bar  there  was  one  of  a  very  unusual  kind  of 
brilliancy.  The  brilliancy  of  invariable  success 
was  his.  I  believe  it  to  be  literally  true  that 
during  many  years  he  never  lost  a  case  which 
depended  on  the  verdict  of  a  jury.  At  the  Bar, 
of  course,  as  elsewhere,  nothing  succeeds  like 
success,  and  Mr.  Durant's  practice  was  very- 
large.  I  have  noticed  that  clients,  as  a  rule, 
would  rather  win  their  cases  than  lose  them. 
How  did  he  do  it?  Nobody  ever  knew.  His 
beaten  rivals,  or  perhaps  their  clients,  sometimes 
hinted  at  things  nobody  ever  ventured  to  assert, 
since  there  was  not  a  scintilla  of  evidence  to 
justify  insinuations. 

There  was  probably  no  secret  save  what  lay 
on  the  surface.  Mr.  Durant  was  a  good  lawyer 
who  prepared  his  cases  with  a  thoroughness  that 
left  no  point  in  doubt,  and  no  scrap  of  evidence 
unexamined.     He  knew  to  a  nicety  what  would 


82  Anglo-American  Memories 

tell  with  a  jury  and  what  would  not.  He  was 
not  a  man  on  whom  it  was  possible  to  spring  a 
surprise.  His  cross-examinations,  without  being 
showy,  were  deadly.  As  a  speaker — orator  he  was 
not — he  had  no  other  conspicuous  merit  than 
clearness;  the  art  of  marshalling  facts  to  fit  his 
own  theory  of  the  case.  When  he  .rose  the  jury- 
were  predisposed  to  believe. 

He  had  a  way  of  turning  to  the  jury  whenever 
during  the  trial  he  had  made  a  point,  brought 
out  a  telling  fact,  or  wrung  an  admission  from  an 
incautious  witness.  It  was  as  if  from  the  be- 
ginning he  took  the  jury  into  partnership;  it  was 
a  matter  in  which  he  and  they  were  alike  in- 
terested, and  the  only  interest  of  either  was  to 
discover  the  truth.  They  said  of  him  what  was 
said  by  a  juryman  of  another  famous  advocate: 
"It  's  no  credit  to  him  to  win  his  causes.  He 
is  always  on  the  right  side."  When  Mr.  Diu'ant 
sat  down  the  jury  were  convinced  that  he,  too, 
was  on  the  right  side,  and  their  verdict  was  but 
the  formal  and  legal  ratification  of  the  moral 
view,  and,  as  they  believed,  of  their  own  con- 
scientious conviction. 

Hypnotism?  I  think  not.  The  thing  was  not 
much  heard  of  in  those  days.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  Mr.  Durant  used  discrimination  and  never 
took  a  cause  into  court  in  which  he  did  not  feel 
sure  of  a  verdict,  but  many  a  lawyer  is  sure  of  a 
verdict  he  does  not  get.  There  remains  a  resi- 
duum of  mystery  which  has  never  been  explained, 
and  is  probably  inexplicable.     Mr.  Durant's  pres- 


A  Group  of  Boston  Lawyers  83 

ence  explained  something.  He  had  a  powerful 
head,  chiselled  features,  black  hair,  which  he 
wore  rather  long,  an  olive  complexion,  and  eyes 
which  flashed  the  lightnings  of  wrath  and  scorn 
and  irony ;  then  suddenly  the  soft  rays  of  sweetness 
and  persuasion  for  the  jury.  He  looked  like  an 
actor.  He  was  an  actor.  He  understood  dramatic 
values,  and  there  was  no  art  of  the  stage  he  did 
not  employ  upon  a  hostile  or  unwilling  witness. 
He  could  coax,  intimidate,  terrify;  and  his  ques- 
tions cut  like  knives. 

He  had  a  stage  name,  like  so  many  other  actors. 
His  real  name  was  Smith,  which  perhaps  was  not 
generally  known.  But  one  day  in  court  he  was 
tormenting  a  reluctant  witness  who  had  been 
Jones  and  was  now  Robinson.  "Mr.  Jones," 
cried  Durant — "I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Robin- 
son." "Yes,  Mr.  Smith,"  retorted  the  witness — 
"I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Durant."  That  cross- 
examination  came  quickly  to  an  end.  But  I 
believe  Mr.  Durant's  prestige  continued  while 
he  remained  at  the  Bar;  then  having  amassed 
a  fortune,  he  abandoned  the  law  and  took  to 
preaching.  Whether  he  had  the  same  success  in 
saving  souls  as  in  winning  causes  I  never  heard.. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS 

IT  was  in  the  winter  of  1860-61  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts alHes  of  the  Southern  Slave  Power 
made  their  last  effort.  Spite  of  Webster's  death, 
with  whom  died  the  brains  of  the  party  and  its 
vital  force,  these  men  were  still  powerful  in 
Boston.  The  surrender  of  Anthony  Burns  in 
May,  1854,  the  birth  of  the  Republican  Party 
at  Worcester  in  July  of  the  same  year,  the  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  Henry  Wilson  as  Governor,  the 
cowardly  assault  in  the  United  States  Senate  on 
Charles  Sumner  by  Mr.  Preston  Brooks,  of 
South  Carolina,  in  1856 — these  events  had  indeed 
stirred  the  people  of  Massachusetts  into  revolt 
against  the  Slave  Party  in  this  Free  State. 

But  there  had  comiC  a  lull.  There  were  still 
hopes  that  a  conflict  between  North  and  South 
might  be  averted  and  that  politics  might  do  the 
work  of  arms.  Mr.  Franklin  Pierce  was  Presi- 
dent, but  Mr.  Banks  had  been  elected  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  the  first 
session  of  the  Thirty-fourth  Congress  in  De- 
cember, 1855.  Mr.  Blaine  said  that  marked 
an   epoch,   and  he  described   it  in  his  brilliant 

84 


Wendell  Phillips  85 

Twenty  Years  of  Congress  as  "a  distinctive  victory 
of  the  Free  States  over  the  consolidated  power 
of  the  Slave  States." 

But  the  Republicans  were  slow  in  coming  to 
power,  and  their  nomination  of  General  Fremont 
in  1856  sowed  distrust  among  the  sounder  men 
of  the  party.  Mr.  Buchanan's  election  seemed 
to  confirm  the  ascendency  of  the  South,  and  the 
mind  of  Boston,  or  at  any  rate  of  State  Street, 
reverted  to  commercial  politics.  The  Abolition- 
ists were  as  much  under  a  cloud  as  ever.  From 
1857  to  i860  things  seemed  to  be  going  backward. 
The  Harper's  Ferry  business  alarmed  the  in- 
grained conservatism  of  Boston,  and  though  the 
hanging  of  John  Brown  shocked  a  good  many 
merchants  and  bankers,  they  could  not  understand, 
and  were  far  from  approving.  Brown's  scheme 
or  Brown's  methods.  The  state  of  feeling  in 
Boston  was,  in  short,  confused,  and  the  emotions 
of  1854  had  gone  to  sleep. 

The  crisis  came  in  December,  i860.  The 
Abolitionists  tried  to  hold  an  Anti-Slavery  Con- 
vention in  Tremont  Temple,  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  hanging  of  John  Brown  or  the  day  after. 
They  do  not  seem  to  have  expected  trouble; 
at  any  rate,  they  took  no  sufficient  precautions 
to  keep  the  peace  and  keep  control  of  their  own 
meeting.  A  "broadcloth  mob" — the  phrase  long 
since  became  classic  in  Boston — occupied  the 
hall  in  force,  captured  the  platform  peacefully, 
elbowed  the  Abolitionists  off  it,  appointed  their 
own  chairman,  Mr.  Richard  S.  Fay,  and  passed 


86  Anglo-American  Memories 

their  own  resolutions.  "Broadcloth,"  said  Phil- 
lips, "does  not  make  a  gentleman."  The  Con- 
vention was  summoned  to  consider  "How  shall 
American  slavery  be  abolished?"  The  John 
Brown  anniversary  was  thought  a  suitable  day 
for  the  discussion  of  that  question,  but  Brown's 
death  was  referred  to  simply  as  "too  glorious 
to  need  defence  or  eulogy."  When  Mr.  Fay, 
the  ringleader  of  the  mob,  thinking  his  work 
done,  had  departed,  Mr.  Frank  Sanborn,  the 
lawful  chairman,  resumed  his  place,  and  would 
have  held  the  lawfully  summoned  meeting.  Then 
the  mob  leaders,  Mr.  Murray  Howe  now  at  their 
head,  made  a  fresh  attack.  The  police  sided 
with  them  and  the  Mayor  cleared  the  hall. 

There  is  a  little  confusion  of  dates.  Brown 
was,  in  fact,  hanged  December  2nd,  the  fatefiil 
day  of  Austerlitz  and  of  the  Third  Napoleon's 
coup  d'etat.  But  these  events  in  Boston  occurred, 
I  think,  on  the  3rd.  The  men  who  had  been 
driven  out  of  Tremont  Temple  by  the  mob,  of 
which  the  Mayor  finally  took  command,  reassem- 
bled in  the  evening,  very  quietly,  in  a  little  hall 
in  Belknap  Street,  on  what  was  impolitely  known 
as  Nigger  Hill,  not  far  from  the  rather  aristocratic 
Mount  Vernon  Street.  Wendell  Phillips,  to  an 
audience  of  perhaps  three  or  four  hundred — 
all  the  place  would  hold — made  an  unreported 
speech,  red-hot  with  wrath.  A  little  more  than 
a  year  before,  November  ist,  1859,  a  fortnight 
after  Brown's  attempt  and  while  he  lay  in  prison 
'waiting    to    be    hanged,  Phillips   had    spoken  in 


•      Wendell  Phillips  87 

Brooklyn,  and  announced  that  the  lesson  of  the 
hour  was  insurrection.  But  he  weakened  the 
force  of  that  counsel  by  adding  that  the  age  of 
bullets  was  over ;  it  was  an  insurrection  of  thought ; 
like  that  of  the  last  thirty  years;  he  still  had  in 
mind.  Now,  here  in  Boston,  and  not  for  the  first 
time  nor  for  the  last,  he  was  face  to  face  with 
forces  which  were  not  intellectual  nor  moral, 
but  forces  of  violence.  Phillips  could  not  readily 
shake  off  the  influences  of  his  whole  public  life. 
He  still  believed  in  "moral  suasion."  He  was 
presently  to  learn  that  moralities  and  the  counsels 
of  peace  were  a  poor  defence  against  men  prepared 
to  back  their  opinions  with  revolvers.  But  even 
after  the  hanging  of  Brown,  at  his  grave  in  North 
Elba,  Phillips  could  say:  "I  do  not  believe  slavery 
will  go  down  in  blood.     Ours  is  the  age  of  thought. ' ' 

Perhaps  the  meeting  of  December,  i860,  marks 
the  beginning  of  his  conversion,  but  by  no  means 
its  completion.  He  had  long  been  used  to  mobs 
and  mob  law.  But  now  the  lesson  was  being 
pressed  home. 

A  memorable  evening  to  me,  because  from  it 
came  my  acquaintance  with  Phillips,  whom  I  had 
never  met.  Under  the  spell,  I  suppose,  of  his 
passionate  eloquence,  I  went  home  and  wrote 
him  a  letter.  I  explained  that  I  was  a  Whig, 
that  my  family  and  friends  were  Whigs,  that  I 
belonged  in  a  hostile  camp,  but  that  I  thought 
there  ought  to  be  free  speech  in  Boston,  and  I 
would  do  what  I  could  for  that  cause  and  for  him 
if  he  would  say  what.     I  was,   as  most  young. 


88  Anglo-American  Memories 

or  old,  men  of  Massachusetts  then  were,  against 
slavery,  especially  in  Massachusetts,  but  not  an 
Abolitionist. 

The  next  day,  about  noon,  the  door  of  my  law 
office  in  State  Street  opened,  and  Phillips  walked 
in.     Without  a  word  of  preface  he  said: 

"You  wrote  me  a  letter?" 

"Yes." 

"Will  you  come  and  see  me  at  my  house  this 
evening,  and  we  will  have  a  talk?  This  morning 
I  have  not  a  moment." 

Again  I  said  yes,  and  the  door  closed  and  he 
was  gone.  Often  as  I  had  seen  Phillips  on  the 
platform  it  seemed  to  me  I  had  never  seen  him 
till  then.  A  clear,  strong,  dry  north  light  came 
in  at  the  windows  and  illuminated  his  face  and 
figure.  He  had  the  bearing  of  a  man  to  whom 
authority  and  sweetness  of  nature  belonged  in 
like  degree.  He  has  been  called  a  thousand  times 
the  Apollo  of  the  platform.  An  Apollo  he  was 
not,  except  in  graceful  dignity  and  demeanour. 
If  his  masculine  beauty  appeared  to  derive  from 
Greece,  it  had  become  Grasco-Roman,  and  finally 
borrowed  its  blonde  colouring  from  some  Scandi- 
navian Balder. 

So  careless  was  he  of  mere  conventionality 
that  while  he  stood  in  the  doorway,  or  just  inside, 
the  soft  light  grey  felt  hat  he  wore,  since  known 
as  a  Homburg  hat,  remained  on  his  head.  When 
I  reminded  him  of  it  long  after,  he  said  with  a 
laugh : 

"Well,  you  did  not  ask  me  to  sit  dow^n. " 


Wendell  Phillips  89 

"No,  you  gave  me  no  time." 

I  mention  it  because,  with  his  hat  on  and  his 
hand  on  the  door,  his  manner  and  bearing  were 
of  a  grave  courtesy  like  none  other.  And  in 
this  transitory  attitude,  just  on  the  wing,  there 
was  a  serene  leisureliness  as  if  to  hurry  were 
unknown  to  him.  His  eye  took  in  everything 
in  these  ten  seconds.  There  was  not  a  word 
beyond  what  I  have  repeated;  a  purely  business 
call  to  make  an  appointment.  But  I  knew  when 
he  had  gone  that  another  influence  had  come  into 
my  life,  stronger  for  the  time  than  all  others. 

I  went  in  the  evening,  as  I  had  been  bidden,  to 
the  little  house  in  Essex  Street  where  Phillips 
chose  to  live,  as  if  to  measure  the  breadth  of  the 
gulf  that  he  had  put  between  himself  and  the 
world  into  which  he  had  been  born;  a  world  of 
easy  circumstances  if  not  wealth,  and  bound  to- 
gether by  a  hundred  social  ties  nearly  all  of  which 
he  had  broken.  Phillips  had  what  at  that  time 
would  be  called  wealth,  for  which  he  had  other 
uses  than  mere  expense  on  comfort.  A  narrow 
door  opened  into  a  narrow  hall  out  of  which 
climbed  narrow  stairs,  with  a  narrow  landing 
half-way  up  where  the  stairs  turned,  and  at  the 
top  a  still  narrower  passage  to  the  door  of  the 
parlour.  Inside,  the  same  impression  of  re- 
stricted space;  a  room  perhaps  sixteen  feet  by 
fourteen,  and  plainly  furnished;  a  worn  carpet 
on  the  floor,  a  large  shabby  sofa  at  the  end  near- 
est the  door  opposite  the  fire-place.  Phillips  was 
sitting  on  the  sofa.     He  rose  and  held  out  his 


90  Anglo-American  Memories 

hand:  "It  's  very  good  of  you  to  come.  I  am 
afraid  I  was  abrupt  this  morning."  Then  he 
plunged  almost  at  once  into  the  situation,  with 
a  forecast  of  what  he  thought  likely  to  happen. 
"Not  much,  if  anything,  till  the  meeting  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society  in  January.  That,  I  dare 
say,  they  will  try  to  break  up.  Lincoln  has  been 
elected  President  and  Andrew  Governor.  You 
know  what  I  think  of  Lincoln.  But  Andrew  I 
know  well,  and  I  do  not  believe  mob  law  will  be 
allowed  to  rule  while  Andrew  is  Governor."  He 
had  already  described  Andrew  in  Tremont  Temple: 
"For  the  first  time  within  my  memory  we  have 
got  a  man  for  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  a 
frank,  true,  whole-souled,  honest  man."  Alas! 
Andrew  was  to  disappoint  him  bitterly  in  this 
one  matter  of  free  speech,  though  in  no  other. 

"But  you  are  to  speak  in  another  fortnight 
at  the  Music  Hall,"  I  said.  "Do  you  think 
they  will  let  you  alone  then?" 

"Why,"  said  Phillips,  "that's  on  a  Sunday"; 
as  if  that  would  matter  to  men  whose  passions, 
interests,  animosities,  all  led  them  to  silence 
the  orator  whom  they  thought,  honestly  enough 
from  their  point  of  view,  a  public  danger.  He 
asked  me  if  I  had  heard  anything.  I  had  not, 
but  when  Phillips  told  me  he  was  going  to  speak 
on  "Mobs  and  Education"  I  answered,  "But 
that 's  a  challenge. " 

"They  can  take  it  as  they  like,"  he  replied, 
quite  softly  and  coolly,  adding:  "If  you  hear 
anything  perhaps  you  '11  let  me  know." 


Wendell  Phillips  91 

Our  talk  lasted  late,  turned  on  some  personal 
matters,  then  drifted  far  away  to  national  issues, 
and  much  else.  I  thought  Phillips,  if  anything, 
more  eloquent  in  talk  than  in  oratory,  yet  with 
never  a  sentence  which  had  in  it  the  ring  of  the 
platform.  He  was  direct,  simple,  persuasive, 
and  luminous.  His  frankness  surprised  me,  but 
he  told  me  afterward  he  had  made  inquiries  and 
thought  it  safe  to  be  frank.  No  doubt  he  saw 
that  mine  was  a  sincere  devotion,  and  perhaps  he 
was  aware  of  the  enchantments  he  wove  about 
whom  he  would.  At  any  rate,  he  gave  me  his 
confidence  from  the  start. 

During  the  next  fortnight  I  saw  many  men 
among  my  Whig  acquaintances.  They  made 
no  secret  of  their  purpose  to  break  up  that  Sunday 
meeting  at  the  Music  Hall.  Soon  these  rumours 
became  public.  When  the  subject  of  Phillips's 
discourse  was  announced,  the  rumours  spread  and 
grew  more  menacing.  The  police  felt  themseVes 
called  on  to  take  notice  of  what  was  likely  to 
happen.  Phillips,  long  used  to  dealing  with 
mobs,  seemed  to  think  the  police  superfluous. 
Some  of  us  who  had  looked  into  the  matter  well 
knew  they  were  not.  Seeing  Phillips  from  day 
to  day,  I  asked  him  again  and  again  to  promise 
his  friends  one  thing,  viz.,  that  he  would  put 
himself  and  leave  himself  in  their  hands.  He  still 
thought  we  were  making  too  much  of  a  slight 
danger,  but  finally  he  promised.  There  had  been 
mobs  in  Boston  before  this,  where  the  police  and 
the    mob    had    acted    together.     They  so  acted 


92  Anglo-American  Memories 

when  Richard  S.  Fay  and  Amos  Lawrence,  and 
Murray  Howe  and  their  friends  broke  up  the 
Anti-Slavery  Convention  in  Tremont  Temple  on 
the  morning  of  December  3rd — this  same  month. 
And  it  was  that  mob  from  which  Phillips  was 
to  take  his  text  on  this  Sunday.  A  piquant 
situation,  if  it  had  not  been  something  much 
more  serious,  with  all  the  materials  of  a  great 
tragedy. 

This  time  the  mob  leaders,  whoever  they  were, 
had  changed  their  tactics.  They  did  not  propose 
to  capture  the  Music  Hall  or  prevent  Phillips 
from  speaking.  He  was  to  be  dealt  with  outside. 
None  the  less  did  the  police  and  Phillips's  friends, 
unaware  of  details,  take  measures  to  guard  the 
interior.  The  police  were  in  force  in  the  lobbies 
and  passages  and  at  the  exterior  approaches  to 
the  platform;  but  out  of  sight.  Scores  of  them 
were  in  the  building,  and  a  much  larger  force  in 
waiting  hard  by.  The  platform,  which  ran  from 
one  side  of  the  hall  to  the  other  at  the  south  end, 
was  garrisoned  by  Phillips's  friends,  armed.  The 
enemy  also  were  armed,  and  no  man  could  say 
what  that  Sabbath  morning  might  bring  forth. 
Naturally,  we  did  not  know  of  the  decision  of 
the  mob  leaders,  all  in  broadcloth,  to  postpone 
their  assault  till  the  meeting  was  over.  We 
expected  trouble  inside,  and  were  ready  for  it. 
I  said  as  little  as  possible  to  Phillips  of  what  I 
thought  likely  to  happen.  I  well  knew  that  if  he 
"were  told  there  was  any  peril  in  freedom  of 
speech,  his  speech  would  be  freer  than  ever. 


Wendell  Phillips  93 

He  always  believed  in  personalities,  saying: 

"In  such  a  cause  as  ours  you  must  at  all  hazards 
rouse  attention.  Men  whose  minds  are  made  up 
against  you  will  listen  to  a  personal  attack  when 
they  will  listen  to  nothing  else.  If  I  denounce 
the  sin  they  go  to  sleep,  but  when  I  denounce  the 
sinner  they  wake  up. " 

There  was  to  be  no  going  to  sleep  on  this  event- 
ful Sunday.  The  speech  on  "Mobs  and  Educa- 
tion" is  perhaps  the  most  personal,  and  the  most 
merciless,  of  all  Phillips's  speeches.  The  Tre- 
mont  Temple  rioters  had  delivered  themselves  into 
his  hands.  He  knew  every  man  among  them 
and  the  joint  in  every  armour.  Many  of  them 
were  there  on  Sunday.  You  saw  the  arrow 
leave  the  platform  and  sink  deep  in  the  quivering 
flesh.  The  cheers  were  soon  mingled  with  hisses. 
The  air  grew  hot.  But  the  majority  were  there 
to  hear  and  the  hisses  were  silenced.  There 
were  passes  of  burning  eloquence,  of  pathos,  of 
invective  that  tore  its  way  through  all  defences. 

"I  have  used  strong  words.  But  I  was  born 
in  Boston,  and  the  good  name  of  the  old  town 
is  bound  up  with  every  fibre  of  my  heart.  I 
dare  not  trust  myself  to  describe  the  insolence 
of  men  who  undertake  to  dictate  to  you  and  me 
what  we  shall  say  in  these  grand  old  streets." 

Thus  spoke  the  aristocrat,  the  Bostonian  proud 
of  Boston  and  of  his  own  descent  from  six  or 
seven  generations  of  the  Boston  Phillipses;  an 
aristocracy  equal  to  the  best.  His  contempt  for 
the  Fays  and  the  rest  of  the  "cotton  clerks"  was 


94  Anglo-American  Memories 

largely  a  contempt  for  the  plebeian.  Plebeians, 
to  the  Boston  mind,  most  of  them  were.  Fay 
is  pilloried  for  ever  in  this  speech;  and  others  are 
pilloried. 

I  will  quote  one  passage,  not  from  Phillips, 
but  a  passage  from  Edward  Everett  on  free  speech 
which  Phillips  himself  quoted  toward  the  end 
of  his  discourse.  I  quote  it  because  Phillips 
used  often  to  say  that  American  oratory  had  few 
finer  examples  to  show: 

I  seem  to  hear  a  voice  from  the  tombs  of  departing  ages, 
from  the  sepulchres  of  nations  that  died  before  the  sight. 
They  exhort  us,  they  adjiure  us,  to  be  faithful  to  our  trust. 
They  implore  us,  by  the  long  trials  of  struggling  human- 
ity, by  the  awful  secrets  of  the  prison  house  where  the 
sons  of  Freedom  have  been  immured,  by  the  noble  heads 
which  have  been  brought  to  the  block,  by  the  eloquent 
ruins  of  nations,  they  conjure  us  not  to  quench  the  light 
that  is  rising  on  the  world.  Greece  cries  to  us  by  the  con- 
vulsed lips  of  her  poisoned,  dying  Demosthenes,  and  Rome 
pleads  with  us  in  the  mute  persuasion  of  her  mangled  TuUy. 

It  is  not  often  that  a  great  orator  opens  his 
heart  to  us  about  the  merits  of  a  rival,  or  whispers 
to  us  any  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  own  or  another's 
eloquence.  I  cannot  remember  whether  Phillips 
ever  paid  to  Everett  in  public  the  tribute  I  have 
often  known  him  pay  in  private.  If  he  had  lived 
in  an  age  when  issues  were  less  vital,  or  less  deadly, 
he  might  have  found  in  Everett  a  model.  But 
Everett  has  no  passion,  and  passion  is  an  elem.ent 
in  almost  all  Phillips's  speeches.  And  passion, 
of  quite  another  kind,  fierce,  vindictive,  miu:-- 
derous,  he  was  to  m^eet  in  another  ten  minutes. 


CHAPTER  X 

WENDELL   PHILLIPS   AND   THE   BOSTON   MOBS 

pHILLIPS'S  speech  had  been  all  through  one 
*  to  stir  deep  resentment.  The  atmosphere 
of  the  Music  Hall  was  seething  with  fierce  passion, 
and  it  seemed  likely  enough  there  would  be  a 
rush  for  the  platform  when  he  had  finished.  If 
it  had  come  it  would  have  been  met.  The  little 
band  of  armed  men  who  concerned  themselves 
about  his  safety  never  left  his  side.  But  there 
was  no  rush.  The  plans  of  the  enemy  were  of  a 
different  kind.  The  audience  passed  quietly  out 
of  the  hall.  A  police  officer  came  to  tell  us 
that  there  would  be  trouble  outside.  A  mob — of 
course  a  broadcloth  mob — had  assembled.  What 
the  mob  intended  only  the  leaders  of  it  knew, 
but  he  asstired  us  that  the  police  were  strong 
enough  to  deal  with  it.  But  he  said  Mr.  Phillips's 
friends  should  go  with  him  when  he  left  the  hall, 
and  keep  with  him. 

There  were,  I  think,  not  more  than  half  a  dozen 
of  us  who  were  armed — Le  Barnes,  Hint  on.  Red- 
path,  Charles  FoUen,  and  one  or  two  others.  We 
told  Phillips  what  he  was  likely  to  meet,  and  that 
we  should  walk  next  to  him.  When  we  got  to 
the  outer  door  we  found  the  police  disputing  with 

95 


gS  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  mob  the  narrow  passage,  perhaps  fifty  yards 
long,  from  the  hall  to  Winter  Street.  It  was  slow 
work  thrusting  these  disturbers  out,  because 
Winter  Street  was  crowded  with  the  main  body 
of  rioters,  and  there  was  no  room  for  more.  But 
the  police  knew  their  business,  and  meant  to  do 
it,  and  did  it.  Inside  the  passage  there  was  not 
space  enough  for  an  effective  attack,  even  had 
not  the  police  been  too  strong.  But  it  took  us, 
I  judge,  some  fifteen  minutes  to  make  our  way 
from  the  hall  door  to  the  street. 

During  this  space  of  time  the  mob  in  Winter 
Street  roared  at  us.  They  seemed  to  think  we 
were  afraid  to  go  on,  and  they  flung  at  Phillips  such 
insults  as  hatred  and  anger  supplied  them  with — 
coward,  traitor,  and  so  on:  with  threats  besides. 
Phillips  met  it  all  with  a  smiling  face.  His  hand 
was  on  my  arm,  so  that  if  there  had  been  any 
nervousness  I  should  have  been  aware  of  it.  But 
the  pressure  of  the  hand  was  firm  and  steady.  He 
was  as  cool — to  use  Mr.  Ruius  Choate's  similitude 
— as  a  couple  of  summer  mornings.  The  police 
who  had  been  a  rear-guard,  satisfied  they  were 
not  needed  there,  had  gone  to  the  front. 

At  first  the  mob  gave  little  heed  to  the  police. 
They  expected  the  police,  as  in  Tremont  Temple, 
December  3rd,  to  be  on  their  side.  But  this  time 
an  officer  had  command  who  knew  only  his  duty 
as  policeman.  No  politics  but  to  keep  the  peace 
and  protect  peaceful  citizens.  The  officer  was 
Deputy  Chief  Ham.  I  have  since  seen  a  great 
deal  of  police  work  in  many  parts  of  the  world; 


Wendell  Phillips  and  Boston  Mobs      97 

in  New  York,  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  else- 
where ;  nowhere  any  better  handling  of  a  dangerous 
mob  than  this  by  Deputy  Chief  Ham.  His  force 
was  none  too  large,  but  his  mastery  over  the 
mob  was  never  in  doubt.  In  their  hand-to-hand 
struggles  in  the  little  passageway  the  police 
showed  what  they  were  made  of.  Of  Phillips's 
friends  the  number  had  increased  as  we  passed 
from  the  platform,  but  if  we  had  been  alone  we 
should  have  been  swallowed  up,  or  we  should  have 
been  driven  almost  at  once  to  use  our  revolvers. 
But  the  police  were  an  impregnable  wall. 

Once  out  in  Winter  Street,  they  formed  in  a 
solid  square,  Phillips  and  his  friends  in  the  centre. 
The  square  was  never  broken.  The  mob  were 
many  thousands  strong.  There  were  wild  rushes, 
there  was  the  tremendous  pressure  of  great  masses 
of  men,  but  against  it  all  the  police  held  good. 
Down  Winter  Street  to  Washington  Street,  along 
Washington  Street  to  Essex  Street,  and  in  Essex 
Street  to  the  door  of  Phillips's  house,  the  mob 
kept  us  company,  oozing  and  surging  slowly  on, 
reviling  and  cursing  all  the  way.  They  thought 
they  would  have  a  chance  at  the  house,  but  the 
Deputy  Chief  had  taken  possession  there  in  ad- 
vance, and  when  the  door  opened  we  passed  com- 
fortably in  between  the  police  lines.  It  had  taken 
us  an  hour  or  more  from  the  hall  to  the  house. 
The  distance  is  a  short  half-mile. 

It  had  been  a  murderous  mob.  Phillips's  life 
was  aimed  at  and  had  been  in  imminent  danger 
during    that    hour.     The    spirit    of    murder    was 


98  Anorlo-American  Memories 


abroad.  The  police  warned  us.  They  thought 
the  peril  over  for  the  moment,  but  none  the  less 
remained  on  duty  near  the  house.  Men  were 
stopped  and  asked  to  state  their  business.  When 
I  returned  in  the  afternoon  an  officer  came  up 
to  me  but  recognized  me,  nodded,  and  I  went 
in.  I  found  Phillips  as  cool  as  usual,  the  usual 
sunshine  in  his  blue  eyes.  I  told  him  what  I  had 
heard  from  the  police,  and  that  I  thought  his 
house  ought  to  be  garrisoned  for  the  night. 

"But  who  will  undertake  that?" 

"Your  friends  know  there  is  danger  and  will 
gladly  come." 

He  seemed  a  little  sceptical  and  asked: 

"Will  you  come?" 

"Certainly."  I  explained  to  him  our  plans. 
He  went  into  the  back  parlour  and  brought  out  an 
ugly-looking  pike.  "It  was  John  Brown's,"  he 
said.  No  weapon  could  be  more  unfit  for  use 
in  a  narrow  hall  or  on  winding  stairs.  It  might 
have  a  moral  effect.  It  was  agreed  that  three 
of  us  whose  names  are  above,  should  camp  out 
that  night  in  the  parlour.  When  we  arrived 
about  ten  o'clock  we  found  the  table  laid,  with 
food  and  drink  for  a  much  larger  army.  The 
night  passed  without  alarm,  as  did  following 
nights,  but  neither  our  vigilance  nor  that  of  the 
police  relaxed. 

During  these  days,  and  long  after,  Phillips 
walked  the  streets  of  Boston  with  his  hand  on  his 
revolver.  I  was  sometimes  with  him.  I  said  one 
day: 


Wendell  Phillips  and  Boston  Mobs      99 

"I  am  more  afraid  now  they  will  try  insult  than 
injury." 

''Don't  trouble  about  that.  I  can  see  over  my 
shoulder,  and  before  a  man  can  touch  me  I  shall 
shoot." 

He  was  a  quick  and  good  shot,  as  I  found  out 
next  summer,  when  I  used  to  stay  with  him  in 
Milton,  and  we  practised  at  a  target. 

But  the  memorable  21st  of  January  drew  on, 
when  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery  Society  was  to  be  held  in  Tremont 
Temple.  Rumours  again  filled  the  air,  and  some- 
thing more  than  rumours.  I  have  already  said  I 
had  friends  in  the  other  camp.  One  of  them  came 
to  me  to  beg  me  to  let  it  alone.  "I  care  nothing 
about  Phillips,"  he  said,  "but  you  are  my  friend 
and  I  must  tell  you  what  I  know,  though  I  am 
betraying  my  own  party."  "Then  don't  tell  it." 
But  he  insisted. 

His  story  came  to  this:  That,  knowing  we  had 
organized  in  December  for  defence,  they  had 
organized  for  attack.  A  group  of  men  outnumber- 
ing oiurs  would  go  to  the  Temple  on  the  21st,  well 
led  and  well  armed.  Under  the  new  Mayor, 
Wightman,  a  more  subservient  tool  of  the  mob 
than  his  predecessor,  Lincoln,  the  police  would  no 
longer  be  allowed  to  protect  the  Abolitionists.  This 
hostile  band  would  wait  on  events  a  little,  but  if 
Phillips  and  his  friends  were  in  the  same  mood  as 
at  the  Music  Hall,  they  would  be  driven  out  of  the 
Temple.  "What  do  you  mean  by  driven  out?" 
He  answered,  gravely,  "It  would  be  truer  to  say 


100  Anoflo-American  Memories 


't> 


carried  out.  We  are  determined  to  put  down  this 
mad  agitation.  They  will  not  leave  the  Temple 
alive." 

My  friend  spoke  in  perfect  good  faith,  but 
it  is  needless  to  say  I  did  not  believe  him.  I  told 
him  so. 

"Your  friends  talk,  but  they  will  not  act.  They 
well  know  that  if  they  murder  Phillips  they  will  be 
hanged  for  it." 

"But  will  you  not  advise  Phillips  to  stay  away, 
or  at  least  to  be  moderate?" 

"No,  I  will  not.     If  I  did,  it  would  be  useless." 

"But  if  you  tell  him  what  I  say?" 

"He  would  disbelieve  it,  as  I  do." 

Our  talk  ended.  I  thanked  him,  but  said  his 
friends  would  find  us  ready ;  that  I  should,  of  course, 
consider  what  he  had  said  confidential,  but  it  would 
not  alter  oiu"  purpose.  He  wished  me  to  tell  Phil- 
lips, mentioning  no  names,  and  I  might  tell  any  of 
our  party  who  could  be  trusted.  Evidently  he 
hoped  they  would  be  more  impressed  than  I  was. 
I  did  tell  Phillips,  who  said,  "You  seem  to  have 
queer  friends."  I  said  something  also  to  the  two 
men  who  were  to  be  stationed  at  the  ends  of  the 
platform  where  the  steps  were,  leading  to  the  plat- 
form from  the  body  of  the  hall,  the  two  most 
dangerous  points.  The  only  change  they  made 
in  their  plans  was  to  double  the  number  of  these 
outposts. 

From  morning,  when  the  Convention  assembled 
till  the  noon  recess,  and  then  all  through  the  after- 
noon the  Temple  was  a  scene  of  confusion,  disorder, 


Wendell  Phillips  and  Boston  Mobs    loi 

uproar;  rioting  even,  but  of  no  violence.  The 
deep  gallery  opposite  the  platform  was  thronged 
by  the  rioters.  The  formal  business  of  organi- 
zation once  over,  they  broke  in  upon  every 
speech.  Nobody  was  heard.  Phillips,  with  all  his 
tact  in  dealing  with  such  gangs,  could  do  little. 
Now  and  then  a  sentence  rang  clear.  A  message 
had  gone  from  the  Temple  to  the  State  House, 
where  Governor  Andrew  sat  waiting,  and  watching 
the  course  of  events.  An  answer  had  come  back 
by  word  of  mouth,  and  had  been  misunderstood, 
as  oral  messages  commonly  are. 

In  a  lull,  Phillips's  voice  was  heard  in  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  gallery  mob:  **We  have  a  message 
from  the  Governor.  The  State  Militia  is  on  its  way 
to  the  Temple  and  will  sweep  that  rabble  where 
it  belongs — into  the  calaboose."  The  rabble 
thought  it  over  for  a  while  in  silence,  but  began 
again.  When  the  adjournment  came  Phillips 
said  to  me:  "I  am  going  to  Governor  Andrew. 
Come." 

We  found  Governor  Andrew  in  his  room  at  the 
golden-domed  State  House  of  Massachusetts.  He 
greeted  us  cordially  and  listened  while  Phillips 
stated  his  case.  Phillips  urged  that  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  had  a  right  to  meet,  a  right  to 
transact  business,  a  right  to  the  free  use  of  that 
free  speech  which  was  a  right  attaching  to  citizen- 
ship in  Massachusetts;  and  a  right  to  be  protected 
when  that  right  was  denied.  Primarily,  he  said, 
it  was  the  business  of  the  police  to  keep  order  and 
give  protection,  but  the  police,  acting  under  the 


102  Anglo-American  Memories 

orders  of  Mayor  Wightman,  refused  to  do  their 
plain  duty. 

"Therefore,"  said  Phillips,  "I  come  to  the 
Governor  of  the  State  to  safeguard  citizens  of  the 
State  in  the  exercise  of  their  rights." 

Said  Governor  Andrew: 

"Mr.  Phillips,  what  do  you  wish  me  to  do?" 

"Send  a  sufficient  force  of  troops  to  Tremont 
Temple  to  put  down  the  rioters  and  protect  law- 
abiding  citizens  in  the  legal  exercise  of  their  legal 
rights." 

The  Governor  sat  behind  a  table  on  which  lay 
a  copy  of  the  Revised  Statutes  of  Massachusetts. 
He  opened  it,  handed  it  to  us,  and  said: 

"  If  you  wish  me,  as  Governor,  to  act,  show  me 
the  statute  which  gives  me  the  power. " 

But  Phillips  was  not  to  be  turned  aside.  He 
answered,  in  tones  slightly  less  cool  than  before: 

"Free  speech  is  a  common  law  right.  The 
power  to  which  I  appeal  is  a  common  law  power, 
inherent  in  the  Governor  as  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  the  State." 

But  Andrew  said  again: 

"Show  me  the  statute." 

And  again: 

"Show  me  the  statute." 

And  from  that  he  was  not  to  be  moved.  Seeing 
that  his  mind  was  made  up,  Phillips  turned  away 
abruptly,  saying  to  me,  "  Come, "  and  we  departed. 
As  we  went  downstairs  Phillips  said : 

"I  will  never  again  speak  to  Andrew  as  long  as  I 
live." 


Wendell  Phillips  and  Boston  Mobs    103 

And  we  went  back  to  the  Temple,  knowing  at 
last  we  had  nothing  to  depend  on  but  ourselves 
and  our  revolvers. 

Again  during  the  interval  my  friend  came  to  me. 
He  said :  "You  will  be  allowed  to  hold  your  meeting 
this  afternoon,  though  not  without  interruption. 
But  the  attack  I  have  warned  you  of  will  be  made 
this  evening,  and  I  once  more  beseech  you  to  stay 
away."  He  knew,  of  course,  it  was  impossible. 
What  took  place  after  that  in  the  councils  of  the 
rioters  I  know  not.  I  have  always  supposed  that 
my  friend,  a  man  well  known  in  Boston,  went  to 
the  Mayor  and  laid  the  case  before  him.  I  do  not 
know.  What  is  known  is  that  before  the  hour 
when  the  Society  was  to  assemble  in  the  evening, 
the  Mayor  closed  the  Temple.  His  decision  was 
not  imparted  to  us.  Phillips  and  I  drove  to  the 
Temple,  and  only  on  arriving  heard  what  the 
Mayor  had  done.  He  was  a  weak  Mayor,  disloyal, 
incompetent.  But  he  had  perhaps  prevented  a 
tragedy.  I  think  Governor  Andrew,  aware  of  the 
probable  course  of  events  in  the  South  and  at 
Washington,  desired  to  avoid  anything  like  a 
conflict  in  Massachusetts.  He  said  as  much  to 
me  afterward.     That  was  his  excuse. 


CHAPTER  XI 

wendell    phillips — governor   andrew — 
Phillips's  conversion 

T^HERE  was  one  clear  reason  for  the  deadly 
^  hatred  of  the  pro-slavery  faction  in  Boston 
to  Phillips.  He  was  the  real  leader  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Party.  If  he  could  be  silenced,  the  voices 
of  the  rest  mattered  little.  During  twenty  years 
Garrison's  influence  had  been  declining,  and  Phil- 
lips had  come  steadily  to  the  front.  For  the  last 
ten  years  he  had  stood  alone.  It  was  his  voice 
which  rang  through  the  land.  His  were  the 
counsels  which  governed  the  Abolitionist  band. 
His  speeches  were  something  more  than  eloquent ; 
they  were  full  of  knowledge,  of  hard  thinking ;  and 
the  rhetorical  splendour  only  lighted  up  a  closely 
reasoned  argument.  What  Emerson  said  of 
speeches  and  writings  in  general  was  absolutely 
true  of  Phillips's  oratory;  the  effect  of  it  was 
mathematically  measurable  by  the  depth  of 
thought.  He  spoke  all  over  the  North.  The 
Conservatives  had  no  match  for  him;  therefore 
he  was  to  be  put  down  by  other  means. 

Passions  ran,  I  think,  higher  in  Boston  during 

those   winter   months   of    1 860-1,    and   the  early 

104 


Wendell  Phillips  105 

spring,  than  before  or  since.  Thanks  to  the  pro- 
slavery  faction  on  one  side  and  the  Abolitionists 
on  the  other,  Massachusetts  was  within  measurable 
distance  of  civil  war  within  her  own  borders.  After 
Fort  Sumter  and  Baltimore,  these  passions  found 
an  outlet  elsewhere.  For  a  time,  the  two  Northern 
factions  merged  into  one  people.  But  during  all 
the  years  that  have  passed  since  I  have  known 
nothing  quite  like  the  state  of  feeling  which  pre- 
vailed that  winter.  The  solid  men  of  Boston 
thought  they  saw  the  fabric  of  society  dissolving 
and  their  business  and  wealth  and  authority  per- 
ishing with  it.  The  solid  world  was  to  exist  no 
more.  Naturally,  they  fought  for  their  lives  and 
all  the  rest  of  it,  and  fought  hard.  Their  hatreds 
were  savage.  Their  methods  were  savage.  We 
seemed  to  be  getting  back  to  the  primitive  days 
when  men  stood  face  to  face,  and  the  issue  of  battle 
became  a  personal  combat.  The  Lawrences  and 
their  friends  were  generally  a  little  stout  for  the 
business  of  battle,  but  the  allies  whom  they  brought 
with  them  to  Tremont  Temple  and  the  Music 
Hall  and  the  streets  were  good  fighting  material. 
During  all  this  time  the  Abolitionists  were,  as  they 
had  been,  a  minority  and  on  the  defensive. 

But  this  was  the  state  of  things  which  Governor 
Andrew  had  in  mind  when  he  challenged  Phillips 
to  show  him  the  statute.  He  did  not  want  to 
make  the  State  of  Massachusetts  a  party  to  this 
conflict  within  itself.  If  to  keep  order  in  the 
streets  or  to  keep  a  platform  open  to  Phillips  he 
were  obliged  to  move,  he  meant  to  have  the  law 


io6  Ang^lo-American  Memories 

with  him.  No  refinements,  no  Judge-made  law,  no 
generahzations — for  the  common  law  after  an 
Atlantic  voyage  and  a  hundred  years'  sleep  is 
nothing — but  a  statute,  printed,  legible,  peremp- 
tory, binding  alike  upon  Governor  and  citizens. 
There  was  no  such  statute.  If  anybody  had 
happened  to  think  of  it,  no  doubt  there  would  have 
been,  but  there  was  not. 

Therefore  the  Governor  sat  still.  He  was  of 
such  a  btdk  that  it  seemed  as  if,  while  he  sat  still, 
nothing  could  move.  He  was,  in  size  and  build, 
not  wholly  unlike  Gambetta,  though  he  had  two 
eyes,  both  blue,  as  against  the  one  black,  fiery  orb 
of  the  Genoese ;  and  curling  light  brown  hair  instead 
of  the  black  lion's  mane  which  floated  to  Gam- 
betta's  shoulders;  and  a  face  in  which  sweetness 
counted  for  as  much  as  strength.  Like  Gambetta, 
he  was  well  served  by  those  about  him.  He  knew 
accurately  what  was  going  on,  and  all  that  was 
going  on.  He  told  me  afterward  he  did  not  know 
on  what  information  we  acted,  but  he  was  aston- 
ished we  knew  so  much  about  what  the  enemy 
intended.  When  I  reminded  him  that  my  asso- 
ciations were  mostly  with  the  other  side,  he  re- 
flected a  moment  and  said:  "Yes,  that  explains  a 
good  deal."  I  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  add 
that,  after  Tremont  Temple,  we  were  on  good 
terms  with  the  police  also;  since  Phillips's  appeal 
to  Andrew  had  been  based  on  the  alliance  between 
the  police  and  the  Lawrence  mob ;  an  alliance  which 
had  in  truth  existed,  at  that  time. 

But  the  winter  wore  on.     Twice  after  the  dis- 


Wendell  Phillips  107 

course  on  Mobs  and  Education,  Phillips  spoke  in 
the  Music  Hall — ^January  20th,  1861,  on  Disunion, 
and  February  17th,  on  Progress.  Both  times  the 
mob  supplied  part  of  his  audience  inside  and  part 
of  his  escort  outside.  No  violence  was  attempted. 
The  police  were  too  strong,  and  the  example  of 
Deputy  Chief  Ham  had  proved  they  were  in 
earnest.  If  there  was  any  violence,  it  was  in 
Phillips's  speeches  and  language.  He  was  never 
more  provocative.  His  forecast  of  the  situation 
was  influenced  by  his  wishes  and  theories.  All 
his  life  he  had  been  preaching  disunion  as  the  one 
remedy  for  the  slave.  Disunion  seemed  now  at 
last  within  reach,  and  at  all  costs  he  would  do 
what  he  could  to  promote  it.  Indeed,  he  thought 
it  already  accomplished.  Within  six  weeks  after 
Lincoln's  election  South  Carolina  had  replied  by 
an  ordinance  of  secession.  Mississippi,  Alabama, 
Georgia  had  followed,  and  all  over  the  South 
United  States  forts  and  arsenals  had  been  seized 
by  State  troops.     What  was  Phillips's  comment? 

"The  Lord  reigneth;  let  the  earth  rejoice.  The 
covenant  with  death  is  annulled;  the  agreement 
with  hell  is  broken  in  pieces.  The  chain  which 
has  held  the  slave  system  since  1787  is  parted." 

He  pronounced  a  eulogy  on  the  Southern  State 
which  had  led  the  way: 

"South  Carolina,  bankrupt,  alone,  with  a  hund- 
red thousand  more  slaves  than  whites,  four  blacks 
to  three  whites  within  her  borders,  flings  her 
gauntlet  at  the  feet  of  twenty-four  millions  of 
people — in  defence  of  an  idea. " 


io8  Anelo-American  Memories 

A  month  later  he  was  in  the  same  mood.  It  was 
a  trait  of  PhilHps — not  a  good  one — that  he  at- 
tacked most  mercilessly  the  men  who  hated  slavery 
as  much  as  he  did,  but  could  not  go  as  far  as  he 
did.  In  this  February  speech  there  is  a  long  lam- 
poon on  Dana;  counsel  for  the  slave  in  all  the 
fugitive  slave  cases,  but  never  denying — ^what 
lawyer  ever  did  deny? — that  there  was  a  constitu- 
tional obligation  to  return  fugitives.  It  is  human 
nature,  but  not  the  best  side  of  it. 

Such  a  reproach  came  ill  from  a  man  who  de- 
nounced the  Constitution  as  a  covenant  with  death 
because  of  the  compromises  with  slavery  imbedded 
in  the  great  instrument  of  1787.  Of  these  com- 
promises the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves  was  one. 
Phillips  himself  could  not  deny  it.  The  difference 
between  him  and  Dana  was  that  Dana  would  bow 
to  the  law  and  Phillips  would  not.  Dana  would 
do  what  he  could  by  legal  means  to  rescue  the 
fugitive.  He  defended  him  in  the  courts.  Phil- 
lips would  have  defended  him  in  the  streets.  Both 
men  were  needful  to  the  time.  The  Abolitionists 
were  very  far  from  disdaining  the  use  of  legal 
weapons.  When  Theodore  Parker  had  been  in- 
dicted and  the  Court,  at  the  instance  of  his  coun- 
sel, quashed  the  indictment  on  purely  technical 
grounds,  Parker  exulted.  "It  is  a  triumph  for  the 
right.     We  have  broken  their  sword. " 

There  came,  however,  the  moment  when  Phillips 
had  to  cast  in  his  lot,  for  good  or  evil,  with  either 
North  or  South.  He  hesitated  long.  He  thought 
and  thought.     He  talked  with  his  friends,  with  the 


Wendell  Phillips  109 

man  in  the  street,  with  the  men  who  had  lately 
mobbed  him.  One  morning  he  came  into  my 
office.  His  sunny  face  was  clouded.  He  looked 
anxious,  almost  ill.  He  had  to  make  the  most 
momentous  decision  of  his  life;  and  he  could  not 
yet  make  up  his  mind.     He  said: 

"I  came  to  talk  to  you  because  I  know  you  are 
against  me.  What  I  have  said  to  you  before  makes 
no  impression.  You  still  think  I  ought  to  renounce 
my  past,  thirty  years  of  it,  belie  my  pledges,  dis- 
own every  profession  of  faith,  bless  those  whom  I 
have  cursed,  start  afresh  with  a  new  set  of  political 
principles,  and  admit  my  life  has  been  a  mistake." 

"Certainly  not  the  last,"  I  said,  "and  as  for 
the  others,  are  you  not  taking  a  rhetorical  view, 
a  platform  view?  But  I  will  go  further.  I  don't 
think  it  matters  much  what  you  sacrifice — con- 
sistency, principles,  or  anything.  They  belong  to 
the  past.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  to-day. 
The  war  is  upon  us.  You  must  either  support  it  or 
oppose  it.  If  you  oppose  it,  you  fling  away  your 
position  and  all  your  influence.  You  will  never 
be  listened  to  again. " 

And  so  on.  He  sat  silent,  unmoved.  Nothing 
I  could  say,  nothing  anybody  could  say,  would 
move  him.  All  his  life  long  he  had  thought  for 
himself;  in  a  minority  of  one.  It  had  to  be  so 
now.  We  talked  on.  Finally,  I  said:  "I  will  tell 
you  what  I  once  heard  a  negro  say:  'When  my 
massa  and  somebody  else  quarrel  I  'm  on  the 
somebody  else's  side. '  Don't  you  think  the  negro 
knows?     Do  you  really  doubt  that  a  war  between 


no  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  Slave  Power  and  the  North,  be  the  result  what 
it  may,  must  end  in  Freedom?"  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  ever  did  hear  a  negro  say  that,  but  I  hoped 
that  Phillips  would  open  his  mind  to  the  negro  if 
not  to  me.  And  I  think  he  did.  I  trust  this  little 
artifice  of  debate  was  not  very  wrong.  I  had  to 
urge  what  I  could,  but  I  knew  Phillips  would  de- 
cide for  himself.  He  left  saying,  "I  will  see  you 
again  to-night."  I  went  to  his  house.  When  I 
opened  the  door  of  the  parlour,  there  lay  Phillips 
on  the  sofa,  asleep.  Ten  minutes  later  he  awoke; 
lay  silent  for  another  minute,  then  said: 

"We  shall  not  have  to  discuss  these  things  any 
more.  I  am  going  to  speak  next  Sunday  at  the 
Music  Hall  for  the  War  and  the  Union. " 

And  he  began  at  once  to  consider  how  he  should 
announce  his  conversion.  Having  gone  over,  he 
took  his  whole  heart  with  him.  No  compromise, 
no  transition,  not  one  word  to  retract,  not  a  hint 
of  apology  or  explanation.  Yesterday  an  Aboli- 
tionist to  whom  the  Constitution  was  a  covenant 
with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell.  To-day 
a  soldier  for  the  Union.     Presently  he  said: 

"It  will  be  the  most  important  speech  of  my  life. 
I  don't  often  write,  as  you  know,  but  I  shall  write 
this  and  will  read  it  to  you  when  it  is  finished. " 

Two  days  later  he  sent  for  me  again  and  these 
were  the  first  sentences  I  heard: 

"Many  times  this  winter,  here  and  elsewhere, 
I  have  counselled  peace — urged  as  well  as  I  knew 
how  the  expediency  of  acknowledging  a  Southern 
Confederacy  and  the  peaceful  separation  of  these 


Wendell  Phillips  m 

thirty-four  States.  One  of  the  journals  announces 
to  you  that  I  come  here  this  morning  to  retract 
those  opinions.     No  not  one  of  them. " 

I  said:  "Mr.  Phillips,  you  will  never  get  be- 
yond that.   They  will  not  listen. " 

"Then  they  will  be  the  last  sentences  I  shall  ever 
utter  in  public.     But  do  you  listen. " 

And  he  went  on,  in  his  finest  platform  manner 
and  voice: 

"No,  not  one  of  them.  I  need  them  all;  every 
word  I  have  spoken  this  winter;  every  act  of 
twenty-five  years  of  :  ly  life,  to  make  the  welcome 
I  give  this  War  hearty  and  hot." 

He  knew  what  he  was  about.  When  it  became 
known  he  was  to  speak  for  the  Union,  Charles 
Pollen  came  to  me  and  asked  whether  I  thought 
Phillips  would  like  the  Music  Hall  platform  hung 
with  the  American  flag.  "Yes,"  said  Phillips, 
"deck  the  altar  for  the  victim."  And  decked  it 
was — a  forest  of  flags ;  and  the  flags  told  the  story, 
long  before  Phillips  opened  his  mouth.  There  was 
not  a  note  of  remonstrance  as  he  announced  his 
refusal  to  retract.     And  again  he  went  on: 

"Civil  war  is  a  momentous  evil.  It  needs  the 
soundest,  most  solemn  justification.  I  rejoice  be- 
fore God  to-day  for  every  word  I  have  spoken 
counselling  peace,  but  I  rejoice  also,  and  still  more 
deeply,  that  now,  for  the  first  time  in  my  Anti- 
Slavery  life,  I  speak  beneath  the  Stars  and  Stripes, 
and  welcome  the  tread  of  Massachusetts  men 
marshalled  for  war." 

I  never  saw  such  a  scene.     The  audience  sprang 


112  Anelo-American  Memories 


& 


up  and  cheered  and  cheered  and  cheered.  The 
hall  was  a  furnace  seven  times  heated.  The  only 
unmoved  man  was  Phillips.  He  waited  and  once 
more  went  on : 

"No  matter  what  the  past  has  been  or  said, 
to-day  the  slave  asks  God  for  a  sight  of  this  banner 
and  counts  it  the  pledge  of  his  redemption.  Hither- 
to it  may  have  meant  what  you  thought  or  what 
I  thought:  to-day  it  represents  sovereignty  and 
justice.  Massachusetts  has  been  sleeping  on  her 
arms  since  '83.  The  first  cannon  shot  brings  her 
to  her  feet  with  the  war-cry  of  the  Revolution  on 
her  lips." 

And  so  on  to  the  end.  It  was  a  nobler  speech 
even  than  in  the  printed  report,  for  that  came  from 
his  manuscript  and  often  he  put  his  manuscript 
aside  and  let  himself  go.  The  inspiration  of  the 
moment  was  more  than  any  written  words.  When 
it  was  over  there  was  again  a  mob  outside;  a  mob 
that  would  have  carried  the  orator  shoulder-high 
to  Essex  Street.  The  honest,  strong  face  of  the 
Deputy  Chief  of  Police  wore  a  broad  smile.  He 
had  done  his  duty.  His  responsibilities  were 
ended.  He,  too,  had  fought  his  fight.  Phillips 
took  it  all  coolly.  It  was  such  a  triumph  as  comes 
to  a  man  once  in  his  career,  and  once  only — the 
finest  hour  in  Phillips's  life.  He  never  reached  a 
greater  height  of  oratory,  nor  an  equal  height  of 
devotion.     For  his  triumph  was  over  himself. 


CHAPTER  XII 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON — ^A  CRITICAL  VIEW 

IN  explaining  why  Wendell  Phillips  was  the  target 
for  every  shot  in  the  winter  of  1 860-1,  I  said  it 
was  because  he  was  the  real  leader  of  the  anti- 
slavery  party  during  all  the  later  and  more  critical 
years  of  the  long  struggle  for  freedom.  No  doubt, 
Garrison  at  one  time  held  the  first  place  among  the 
Abolitionists.  He  was  the  first  of  them  in  time, 
or  one  of  the  first.  He  had  had  the  good  fortune  to 
be  mobbed  and  led  through  the  streets  of  Boston 
with  a  rope  about  his  body.  He  had  founded  a 
weekly  paper,  The  Liberator.  Georgia  had  offered 
five  thousand  dollars  reward  for  his  arrest.  He 
had  unflinching  courage  and  needed  it  all  in  the 
'thirties  and  later.  But  he  had  very  moderate 
abilities.  His  force  was  a  moral  force.  He  had 
convictions  and  would  go  any  length  rather  than 
surrender  any  one  of  them.  But  he  had  almost 
no  other  of  those  gifts  and  capacities  which  make  a 
leader.  He  had  no  organizing  power.  He  was 
not  a  good  writer.  He  was  not  a  good  speaker. 
He  could  not  hold  an  audience.  He  could  not 
keep  the  attention   of  the  public  which  he  had 

won  in  the  beginning.     He  did  not  attract  to  the 
8  113 


114  Anglo-American  Memories 

Abolitionist  ranks  the  ablest  of  the  men  who  were 
ready  to  make  a  fight  against  slavery.  They  did 
not  care  to  serve  under  Garrison;  under  a  leader 
who  could  not  lead.     They  went  into  politics. 

So  it  happened  that  the  Abolitionists  had  become 
a  dwindling  force.  If  Phillips  had  not  appeared  on 
the  scene,  with  his  wonderful  oratory,  his  natural 
authority  on  the  platform  and  off,  his  brilliant 
love  of  battle,  his  temperament,  at  once  command- 
ing and  sympathetic,  his  persuasive  charm — ^the 
Abolitionists  would  have  been  wellnigh  forgotten. 
He  had  all  the  moral  force  of  Garrison,  and  the 
intellectual  force  which  Garrison  had  not. 

Phillips  himself  would  never  allow  this  to  be 
said  if  he  could  help  it.  He  recognized  Garrison 
as  leader,  and  was  perfectly  loyal  to  him.  So  far 
as  he  could,  he  imposed  his  own  view  on  the  public. 
It  was  so  abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  When 
Garrison  came  to  London  a  meeting  was  held  in 
St.  James's  Hall  in  his  honour.  Mr.  Bright  spoke 
and  others  spoke,  hailing  the  worn-out  champion 
as  the  herald  of  American  Emancipation,  which 
perhaps  he  was.  Boston,  which  has  periods  of 
generous  penitence,  gave  him  thirty  thousand 
dollars,  others  than  Bostonians  paying  part  of 
the  money,  and  accepted  a  bronze  statue  and  put 
it  up — I  forget  where.  It  has  ever  since  been  the 
fashion  to  recognize  Garrison  as  the  moral  edu- 
cator of  the  North  on  the  slavery  question;  the 
schoolmaster  of  his  period.  Very  possibly  my 
liking  for  Phillips  warped  my  opinion  at  the  time. 
But  now,  after  all   these  years,    I   think  myself 


William  Lloyd  Garrison  115 

impartial.  I  had  a  knowledge  of  the  situation. 
If  it  is  a  wrong  view,  why  was  Phillips  and  not 
Garrison  the  shining  mark  at  which  the  pro- 
slavery  people  aimed  in  those  critical  years  from 
1854  to  1 861?     No  other  theory  will  explain  that. 

When  I  used  to  express  an  impatient  opinion  of 
Garrison,  and  of  Phillips's  submission  to  him, 
I  was  rebtiked  for  it.   Said  Phillips: 

"You  are  unjust  and  you  do  not  know  the  facts, 
or  you  do  not  make  allowance  for  them.  Like 
other  young  men,  you  are  of  to-day.  Garrison's 
work  had  been  done  before  you  were  old  enough 
to  know  anything  about  it,  and  he  is  for  all  time. 
I  don't  say  there  would  have  been  no  Abolitionist 
movement  but  for  Garrison,  since  Abolition  was 
in  the  air,  and  the  anti-slavery  fight  had  to  be 
fought.  It  would  have  been  fought  in  a  different 
way  without  him,  and  perhaps  later.  You  under- 
rate the  moral  forces  and  Garrison's  capacity  as  a 
leader.  He  was  a  leader,  and  is.  Intellectual  gifts 
do  not  make  a  leader.  The  soldier  whom  other 
soldiers  follow  into  the  breach,  and  to  death,  need 
not  be  a  great  captain,  nor  understand  the  art  of 
war.  What  he  understands  is  the  art  of  getting 
himself  killed,  and  of  inducing  the  men  behind 
him  to  do  the  same.  Garrison  took  his  life  in 
his  hand.  For  many  years  he  was  leader  of 
a  forlorn  hope.  He  held  extreme  views.  He 
had  to  hold  them.  He  drove  men  away  from 
the  Abolitionist  camp.  They  were  better  else- 
where. He  was  not  a  politician,  but  politics  were 
not  what  we  wanted,  nor  what  the  cause  wanted. 


ii6  Anelo-American  Memories 


'& 


What  it  wanted  was  inspiration,  and  that  is  what 
it  got  from  Garrison." 

I  have  put  this  in  quotation  marks,  but  I  do 
not  mean  that  Phillips  said  it  all  at  once,  nor 
perhaps  in  these  words.  But  the  passage  repro- 
duces as  accurately  as  I  can  the  substance  of  what 
I  have  heard  him  say  in  many  talks  about  Garrison. 
I  do  not  expect  anybody  to  accept  my  view  against 
Phillips's.  But  I  must  give  my  own,  right  or 
wrong.  I  saw  something  of  Garrison,  publicly  and 
privately.  I  had  no  dislike  for  him,  but  neither 
had  I  any  enthusiasm.  As  I  recall  the  impressions 
of  those  days,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  never 
known  a  man  of  so  much  renown  as  Garrison 
with  so  slight  an  equipment  for  the  business  of 
leadership,  or  even  of  apostleship.  When  I  try 
to  sum  him  up,  I  am  embarrassed  by  the  want  of 
material.     After  all,  what  did  he  say  or  do? 

Borrowing  from  Isaiah  a  phrase  of  condensed 
passion.  Garrison  had  called  the  Constitution  a 
covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell. 
Without  Isaiah's  help,  he  produced  the  only  other 
phrase  which,  out  of  all  his  writings  and  speakings 
has  kept  a  place  in  the  general  memory:  "I  will 
not  equivocate ;  I  will  not  excuse ;  I  will  not  retreat 
a  single  inch,  and  I  will  be  heard. "  That  was  his 
pledge  in  the  first  number  of  The  Liberator.  It 
was  finely  said,  and  well  he  kept  it;  so  long  as  it 
mattered  what  he  kept.  I  have  often  heard  him 
speak.  I  cannot  recall  one  single  effort  of  any- 
thing that  could  be  thought  oratory.  He  was 
a  tiresome  speaker.     Of  rhetoric,  or  of  that  art 


William  Lloyd  Garrison  117 

which  goes  to  the  making  of  good  speeches,  he 
had  no  trace  or  tinge.  Between  him  and  his 
audiences  there  was  no  give  and  take.  He  just 
stood  up  on  the  platform  and  hammered  away. 

He  was  a  fanatic,  pure  and  simple.  He  had  a 
message  to  deHver,  and  he  dehvered  it  as  a  gramo- 
phone dehvers  its  messages.  He  was  what  they 
call  a  record.  If  he  impressed  his  hearers,  as  he 
sometimes  did,  it  was  by  the  passionate  fervour 
of  his  beliefs,  and  of  his  animosities.  He  was  at 
white  heat.  More  often  he  wearied  them.  They 
got  up  and  went  away.  I  suppose  people  read 
The  Liberator.  Dr.  Johnson  said  you  could  write 
anything  if  you  set  yourself  to  it  doggedly,  and 
so  it  is  of  reading.  But  the  average  reader  feels 
himself  entitled  to  a  little  help  from  the  writer, 
and  from  Garrison  he  got  none. 

This,  however,  was  in  the  early  days  of  journal- 
ism— it  was  ten  years  before  Horace  Greeley 
founded  The  New  York  Tribune  that  The  Liberator 
was  born.  A  newspaper  was  then  a  newspaper, 
whether  it  had  any  news  or  not ;  and  even  when  its 
editorials  were  written,  as  the  elder  Bennett  said 
The  New  York  Herald  editorials  were  written,  for 
men  who  could  not  read.  The  printed  page  had 
an  authority  because  it  was  printed;  an  authority 
which  hardly  survived  Prince  Bismarck's  epigram 
on  the  newspaper:  "Just  printer's  ink  on  paper." 
The  Liberator  was  violent,  bitter,  prolix,  and  dull. 
But  the  Puritan  preachers  were  all  this,  yet  men 
sat  contentedly  for  hours  beneath  their  intolerable 
outpourings,  as  do  the  Scotch  to  this  day.     Carlyle 


ii8  Anglo-American  Memories 

had  heard  Irving  preach  for  hours  on  end.  I 
have  sometimes  had  to  sit  under  the  Scottish 
preachers,  when  staying  at  a  highly  ecclesiastical 
house.  On  these  occasions  I  used  to  dream  that 
I  was  reading  The  Liberator  or  listening  to  Garri- 
son in  the  Boston  Melodeon.  The  a  priori  method 
was  common  to  both,  and  the  absence  of  accurate 
knowledge.  They  did  not  master  their  subjects,  nor 
their  trade. 

As  to  what  Garrison  did,  I  am  quite  willing  to 
accept  the  history  of  his  time  as  it  is  commonly 
told.  I  take  all  that  for  granted;  all  his  services 
to  the  anti-slavery  cause;  and,  with  all  drawbacks, 
they  were  great.  Still,  I  do  not  think  they  explain 
his  immense  fame.  He  was  a  Captain  in  the 
army  of  the  Lord,  if  you  like,  but  a  Captain  who 
won  no  battles.  There  was  one  final  victory, 
based  on  a  long  series  of  defeats ;  a  victory  in  which 
he  had  a  share,  though  not  a  great  share.  Perhaps 
a  better  Saint  than  Captain,  but  in  Rome's  long 
catalogue  of  the  canonized  how  many  first-rate 
names  are  there?  You  can  become  a  saint  quite 
cheaply  if  you  know  how.  There  are  fifty  or 
more  huge  volumes  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  mostly 
lies,  yet  extremely  interesting  as  examples  of  the 
use  to  which  the  human  imagination  can  be  put 
for  ecclesiastical  purposes.  A  Benedictine  labour, 
ere  yet  science  had  shaken  the  foundations  of 
clerical  fairy  tales  by  its  demand  for  evidence. 
The  acutest  minds  accepted  them.  So  late  as  the 
nineteenth  century  they  were  still  accepted. 
After  his   "conversion,"   Newman,   perhaps   the 


William  Lloyd  Garrison  119 

finest  mind  of  his  time,  swallowed  whole  all  the 
fictions  to  which  the  Church  of  Rome  had  given 
the  imprimatur  of  infallibility.  Garrison's  exploits 
are  less  legendary,  but  are  they  much  more  sub- 
stantial?    His  fame  rests  on  generalities. 

To  look  at,  he  was  neither  soldier  nor  saint.  He 
had  not,  on  the  one  hand,  the  air  of  command, 
nor,  on  the  other,  the  sweetness  or  benignity  we 
expect  from  one  of  the  heavenly  host.  His  face 
was  both  angry  and  weak.  His  attitude  on  the 
platform  was  half  apologetic  and  half  passionate. 
His  speech  at  times  was  almost  shrewish.  It  was 
never  authoritative  though  always  self-complacent. 
So  was  the  expression  of  his  face,  with  its  smile 
which  tried  to  be  amiable  and  succeeded  in  being 
self-conscious.  There  was  no  fire  in  his  pale 
eyes;  if  there  had  been,  his  spectacles  would  have 
dulled  it.  He  stooped,  and  his  most  vehement 
appeals — they  were  often  extremely  vehement — 
came  to  you  sideways.  It  was  an  unlucky  effect, 
for  there  was  nothing  shifty  or  crooked  in  the 
man's  nature.  But  he  had  a  r61e  to  play — Isaiah, 
if  you  like — and  played  it  as  well  as  his  means 
would  allow. 

It  was  the  indomitable  honesty  of  the  man  which 
gave  him  such  authority  as  he  had.  That  is  not 
a  bad  eulogy  in  itself.  Bad  or  good,  nothing  I  can 
say  will  diminish  his  reputation,  nor  do  I  wish  it 
should.  When  a  legend  has  once  grown  up  about 
a  man  it  keeps  on  growing.  It  has  been  decreed 
that  Dickens  shall  be  a  great  novelist,  and  Glad- 
stone a  great  statesman,  and  Browning  a  great 


120  Anglo-American  Memories 

poet,  and  Herbert  Spencer  a  great  philosopher. 
Each  of  these  men  was  great  in  other  ways,  but 
the  legend  is  invincible.  So,  no  doubt,  with  Gar- 
rison. He  will  remain  the  Liberator  of  the  Slave. 
By  the  time  the  cold  analysis  of  History  reverses 
that  verdict,  personal  partialities  will  have  ceased 
to  count. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CHARLES  SUMNER — ^A  PRIVATE  VIEW 

THE  anti-slavery  leaders  who  emerged  about 
the  same  time  from  the  groups  of  medio- 
crities enveloping  them  were  Wendell  Phillips  and 
Charles  Sumner.  So  essentially  was  Sumner  an 
idealist  that  he  might  naturally  have  cast  in  his 
lot  with  those  who  preferred  ideals  to  party  politics, 
but  other  influences  finally  prevailed  and  he  em- 
barked on  that  career  which,  in  due  time,  made 
him  the  leader  of  the  anti-slavery  forces  to  whom 
freedom  seemed  possible  by  political  methods. 
On  the  whole,  even  among  that  group  of  men  which 
included  Andrew,  I  think  Stunner  must  be  put 
first.  His  province  was  larger;  the  range  of  his 
activities  greater;  and  there  were  more  moments 
than  one  when  he  was  the  most  conspicuous  figure 
in  American  public  life.  Of  his  scholarship,  his 
legal  attainments,  his  multifarious  and  accurate 
knowledge,  his  immense  powers  of  work,  every- 
body has  heard.  I  do  not  enter  upon  that.  The 
Sumner  I  shall  speak  of  is  the  Sumner  I  knew. 

In  the  account,  first  published  in  The  New  York 
Tribune,  of  my  first  meeting  with  Bismarck,  in  1866, 

I  said  that  I  had  heard  much  from  Bismarck  which 

121 


122  Anglo-American  Memories 

I  could  not  repeat.  On  my  return,  I  saw  Sumner. 
Almost  instantly  he  asked  what  it  was  Bismarck 
had  told  me  which  I  could  not  repeat  in  print. 
The  question  was  embarrassing  enough,  and  I 
answered  rather  slowly : 

"Mr.  Sumner,  much  of  what  Count  Bismarck 
said  that  seemed  to  me  confidential  related  to 
diplomatic  and  international  matters,  and  you 
are  Chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations.  It  would  not  have  been  said  to  you." 
Sumner  reflected  a  moment,  then  answered: 
' '  I  suppose  you  are  right.  I  won't  ask  you  about 
anything  which  you  think  you  ought  not  to  repeat. 
But  you  must  consider  that,  notwithstanding  all 
that  Bismarck  has  accomplished,  he  is  still  an 
unknown  force.  My  own  belief  is  that  the  future 
of  Germany  lies  in  his  hands.  The  man  who 
could  defy  the  public  opinion  of  Europe  in  that 
business  with  Denmark,  who  could  defy  the  public 
opinion  and  Parliament  of  Prussia,  who  could 
govern  four  years  without  a  Budget  or  a  majority, 
who  could  make  war  without  supplies,  and  without 
his  country  behind  him,  and  his  King  only  a  con- 
vert at  the  last  moment  to  his  policy — that  man, 
though  he  has  put  Austria  under  his  feet  and 
Prussia  in  Austria's  place  at  the  head  of  Germany, 
is,  in  my  judgment,  only  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career.  He  is  the  one  supremely  interesting 
figure  in  Europe  at  this  moment.  I  have  never 
met  him;  probably  may  never  meet  him.  But  it 
is  important  to  me  to  know  all  I  can  about  him. 
Violate  no  confidence,  but  tell  me  what  you  can. 


Charles  Sumner  123 

I  will  make  no  use  of  it  except  to  inform  my  own 
mind.  When  I  have  to  deal  with  Count  Bismarck, 
I  want  to  be  able  to  picture  to  myself  what  man- 
ner of  man  he  is.  In  diplomacy,  a  knowledge  of 
men  is  half  the  battle. " 

This  long  speech  was  characteristic  of  Sumner. 
He  was  seldom  brief  or  simple.  His  mind  over- 
flowed. In  private,  as  in  public,  he  was  oratorical. 
The  sentences,  as  they  came  from  his  lips,  seemed 
to  have  passed  through  a  mould.  He  spoke  with  a 
model  before  him.  The  most  sincere  of  men,  he 
was  never  content  to  be  himself  and  nobody  else. 
In  the  murmur  of  the  flowing  periods  he  often 
uttered,  you  heard  echoes  of  Cicero,  of  Bossuet, 
of  Burke.  Perhaps  it  was  true  of  him — as  Emer- 
son said,  not  of  him — that  his  library  overloaded 
his  wit.  He  moved  as  if  in  armour;  a  mixed  but 
apt  metaphor.  The  chair  in  which  he  sat  was  a 
platform,  and  his  one  listener  was  an  audience. 
He  neglected,  in  his  private  talk,  none  of  the  arts 
of  the  rhetorician.  Whoever  has  heard  Sumner 
in  the  Senate  or  in  Faneuil  Hall  must  remember 
the  imposing  presence  of  the  man ;  his  stature :  and 
the  leonine  head  with  its  waving  black  mane 
which  every  moment  he  tossed  from  his  forehead, 
only  to  have  it  fall  again  half  over  his  eyes.  The 
strong  features  stood  out  sharply,  the  eyes  were 
alight,  the  lips  moulded  into  plastic  form  the  most 
stubborn  sentences,  and  the  whole  blended  into 
one  expression  after  another  at  the  will  of  the 
speaker;  each  expression  the  visible  image  of  his 
thought.     He  was  so  intent  on  bending  his  audience 


124  Anglo-American  Memories 

to  his  will  that  he  used  without  stint  every  weapon 
at  his  command. 

In  private,  all  this  was  a  little  overwhelming. 
As  it  comes  back  to  me  in  memory,  my  view  of  it 
is  probably  more  critical  than  it  was  while  I  sat 
and  looked  and  listened.  But  it  still  seems  to  me 
extremely  fine.  In  England — the  coimtry  of  all 
others  where  simplicity  counts  for  most — Sumner 
was  thought  emphatic;  and  the  English  do  not 
like  emphasis,  but  they  liked  Sumner.  He  was 
first  here  as  a  young  man,  in  1838  and  1840,  when 
he  was  still  in  the  late  'thirties ;  and  these  manner- 
isms were  presumably  less  mannered,  or  less 
aggressive.  But  the  men  and  women  whom  Sum- 
ner then  came  to  know  were  men  and  women  who 
dwelt  on  the  heights.  I  suppose  the  average  of 
serious  culture  at  that  time  in  that  class  was  at 
least  as  high  as  it  is  now.  They  liked  a  man  with 
a  full  mind.  Sumner  had  that;  and  he  poured  it 
out  in  a  flood. 

Macaulay  had  taught  his  set,  or  the  several  sets 
to  which  he  more  or  less  belonged,  to  endure  con- 
versation which  took  the  form  of  monologue  and 
rivalled  the  laborious  accuracy  of  a  cyclopeedia. 
People  suffered  under  him.  Lady  Holland  and 
Hayivard  and  Lord  Melbourne  and  others  rebelled, 
but  there  were  not  many  who  rebelled.  Sumner's 
path  had  therefore  been  made  plain,  nor  was  he 
dogmatic  in  Macaulay's  way.  He  was  human 
and  his  enthusiasms  were  human,  and  he  was 
sympathetic. 

But  when  Sumner,  in  1869,  made  his  indirect 


Charles  Sumner  125 

Claims  speech  in  the  Senate,  seeking  to  induce  the 
Government  to  demand  from  England  indirect 
damages  for  the  depredations  of  the  Alabama,  his 
popularity  in  this  country  came  to  a  sudden  end. 
His  best  friends  were  those  who  resented  this 
speech  most  hotly;  and  Mr.  Bright  most  of  all. 
To  Mr.  Bright  I  once  undertook  to  defend  Sumner 
or  to  explain  him,  for  I  thought  he  had  been  mis- 
understood. But  Mr.  Bright  would  not  have  it. 
"The  only  defence  is  silence,"  he  exclaimed,  and 
he  was  the  more  angry  when  I  said:  "That  will  do 
for  an  epigram."  And  we  never  referred  to  it 
again. 

So  far  as  I  could,  I  satisfied  Sumner's  interest 
about  Bismarck,  whom  I  had  seen  at  short  range, 
and  with  whom,  on  the  evening  in  question,  I  had 
spent  some  three  hours  alone.  Sumner  asked 
question  after  question,  with  one  definite  object; 
he  wanted  to  understand  the  man  himself.  Once 
or  twice  he  put  a  searching  interrogatory  on  mat- 
ters of  diplomacy,  or  on  the  relations  between  the 
King  and  his  great  Minister,  which  had  to  be 
answered  with  reserve.  He  showed  an  astonishing 
knowledge  of  purely  Prussian  politics,  and  even 
of  Prussian  politicians.  He  asked  if  it  was  true 
that  Loewe  and  the  other  Liberals  had  owned  they 
were  wrong  in  opposing  Bismarck,  and  when  I 
said  yes,  exclaimed:  "Then  they  showed  more 
good  sense  than  I  expected. " 

I  spent  some  days  with  Mr.  Sumner  in  his  house 
in  Lafayette  Square,  in  Washington,  now  part  of 
a  Washington  hotel.     A  plainly  furnished  house, 


126  Anglo-American  Memories 

hardly  a  home ;  chiefly  remarkable  for  its  books  and 
for  Sumner.  He  was  a  kindly  host,  anxious  that 
his  guest  should  make  the  most  of  his  visit,  and 
see  the  men  he  wanted  to  see.  I  wanted  to  ask 
him  why  he  had,  on  a  former  visit,  advised  me  not 
to  see  Lincoln;  but  I  did  not.  But  Lincoln  was 
now  dead  and  among  the  giants  who  survived  him 
Sumner  was  the  most  attractive  personality. 

He  became  more  attractive  still  some  years  later, 
in  1872,  when  he  came  to  Europe  for  the  rest 
which  his  long  warfare,  first  with  President  John- 
son and  then  with  President  Grant,  had  made 
imperative.  He  came  first  to  London,  staying — 
or,  as  the  English  perversely  say,  stopping — at 
Fenton's  Hotel,  St.  James's  Street ;  then  a  hostelry 
of  repute,  now  extinct.  He  had  a  large  suite  of 
rooms  on  the  ground  floor  at  the  back;  gloomy, 
and  intensely  respectable.  I  dined  with  him  the 
night  of  his  arrival.  "I  don't  know  what  kind 
of  a  dinner  they  will  give  us,"  said  Sumner,  "but 
you  shall  have  a  bottle  of  Chateau  Lafitte  of  1847, 
and  the  rest  will  matter  less."  He  loved  good 
Bordeaux,  as  all  good  men  do;  and  his  talk  flowed 
like  old  wine — a  full,  pure  stream,  with  both 
flavour  and  bouquet;  and  not  much  of  the  best 
claret  has  both. 

It  is  not  possible  to  repeat  much  of  Sumner's 
talk,  for  it  was  mostly  personal  and  intimate.  But 
I  asked  him  whether  he  still  felt  the  effects  of 
those  coward  blows  which  Preston  Brooks  had 
dealt  him  from  behind  as  he  sat  imprisoned  in 
his  chair  in  the  Senate.     He  was  not  sure.     He 


Charles  Sumner  127 

doubted  whether  he  had  ever  completely  recovered, 
though  it  was  now  some  sixteen  years  since  that 
particular  piece  of  South  Carolina  chivalry  had 
been  perpetrated.  He  thought  everything  had 
been  done  for  him  which  could  be  done.  What 
he  told  me  may  or  may  not  have  been  printed. 
I  do  not  know.  When  the  moxa  was  to  be  applied 
to  his  spine,  Dr.  Charcot  proposed  to  give  him 
an  anaesthetic.  "But,"  said  Sumner,  "does  not 
the  effect  you  seek  to  produce — the  counter- 
irritation — depend  more  or  less  on  the  pain  the 
patient  would  endure  without  the  anesthetic?" 
"Yes,"  Charcot  admitted,  reluctantly,  "it  pro- 
bably does."  "Then  let  us  go  ahead  without 
ether,"  said  Sumner;  and  they  did.  I  understood 
the  treatment  consisted  in  laying  along  the  spine 
cotton-wool  soaked  in  oil  and  setting  fire  to  it. 
When,  after  two  or  three  days,  the  burn  is  partly 
healed,  the  operation  is  renewed,  and  the  pain, 
of  course,  more  severe.  But  no  ether  was  admin- 
istered. After  his  first  attack  of  angina  pectoris, 
"the  pain,  "said  Sumner,  "which  I  endiu-ed  in  a 
single  second  from  one  of  those  spasms  was  more 
than  all  I  ever  suffered  from  all  the  applications 
of  the  moxa." 

We  went  together  from  London  by  way  of 
Boulogne  to  Paris,  staying  two  nights  at  Boulogne 
at  one  of  the  beach  hotels.  Sumner  was  like  a 
boy ;  his  sixty-one  years  sat  lightly  on  him  and  his 
interests  were  as  fresh  as  I  had  ever  known  them. 
He  loved  the  sea  and  the  sea  air;  an  air  so  much 
more  exhilarating  on  the  southern  coast  of  the 


128  Anglo-American  Memories 

Channel  than  the  northern.  He  was  amused  to 
hear  that  the  customs  authorities  had  passed  all 
OUT  luggage — his  and  mine — ^because  I  had  told 
them  he  was  a  Senator;  and  still  more  amused 
later  when  the  Dover  customs  on  oiu:  retiun  had 
shown  him  the  same  indulgence  as  "The  Hon- 
ourable Charles  Sumner" — honourable  denoting  in 
England  not  political  distinction,  but  membership 
of  a  family  the  head  of  which  is  a  peer.  In  Paris, 
as  in  London,  we  had  rambled  about  the  book- 
shops. "I  dare  say,"  remarked  Simmer,  "you 
thought  from  my  books  at  home  that  I  cared 
nothing  for  books  as  books;  or  for  bindings.  But 
you  will  see. "  And  he  proceeded  to  buy  a  certain 
number  of  so-called  fine  bindings :  which,  alas,  were 
not  so  fine  as  they  ought  to  have  been. 

Less  than  two  years  after  his  last  months  in 
Eiu-ope,  he  died.  I  have  still  much  to  say  about 
him,  and  there  are  many  letters  of  his  to  me  which 
I  hope  to  print;  but  they  are  not  here  and  I  must 
end.  When  I  remember  what  has  been  said  so 
often  of  Sumner  by  men  who  did  not  know  him  or 
did  not  like  him,  I  may  be  allowed  to  end  with  a 
tribute  of  affection.  I  thought  him,  and  I  shall 
ever  think  him,  one  of  the  most  lovable  of  men; 
more  than  loyal  to  his  friends,  delighting  in  kind- 
nesses to  them;  of  an  implacable  honesty,  sin- 
cerity, devotion  to  duty  and  to  high  ideals;  an 
American  to  whom  America  has  paid  high  honoiu-, 
but  never  yet  enough. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EXPERIENCES    AS    JOURNALIST    DURING    THE 
CIVIL  WAR 

MY  obligations  to  Wendell  Phillips  are  mixed, 
and  one  of  them  was  an  introduction  to 
The  Tribune.  In  the  autumn  of  1861  I  wanted 
two  things:  a  holiday,  and  a  chance  to  see  some- 
thing of  the  war  and  the  negro  question  at  short 
range.  At  that  time,  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana  was 
managing  editor  of  The  Tribune,  with  Mr.  Sydney- 
Howard  Gay  as  his  first  lieutenant.  Phillips  gave 
me  a  letter  to  Mr.  Gay,  the  result  of  which  was 
that  Mr.  Dana  asked  me  to  go  to  South  Carolina 
for  The  Tribune. 

A  word  about  Mr.  Dana.  He  had  the  reputa- 
tion at  that  time  of  being  what  the  cabman  called 
that  Mr.  John  Forster  who  was,  among  other  things, 
the  friend  and  biographer  of  Dickens — "a  harbi- 
trary  gent."  I  suppose  Mr.  Dana  was  arbitrary; 
in  the  sense  that  every  commanding  officer  must 
be  arbitrary.  But  my  relations  with  him,  or  my 
service  under  him,  lasted  some  months,  during 
the  whole  of  which  period  I  found  him  considerate 
and  kindly.  He  liked,  I  think,  to  assign  a  man 
to  duty  and  judge  him  by  the  result ;  which  meant 

that   the  man   was   left   free   to   work   out    his 

129 


130  Anglo-American  Memories 

own  salvation;  or  damnation,  as  the  case  might 
be. 

I  was,  of  course,  perfectly  new  to  the  business 
of  journalism  and,  equally  of  course,  made  many 
mistakes.  But  Mr.  Dana  was  not  the  kind  of 
manager  who  fastened  on  this  mistake  or  that  as 
an  occasion  for  chastising  the  offender.  He  judged 
a  man's  work  as  a  whole.  In  the  office,  I  am  told, 
he  sometimes  thought  it  needful  to  speak  plainly 
in  order  to  enforce  a  steady  discipline.  He  had 
been  known  to  walk  into  the  room  of  one  of  the 
departmental  editors,  in  full  view  and  hearing  of 
the  whole  staff,  and  remark:  "Mr.  X,  you  were 
disgracefully  beaten  this  morning,"  in  the  tone 
in  which  he  might  have  said  it  was  a  fine  day. 
But  the  next  morning  Mr.  X  was  not  beaten; 
nor  the  next. 

Very  possibly,  between  me  and  Mr.  Dana's 
wrath,  if  I  roused  it,  stood  Mr.  Gay;  a  man  of 
soft  manners  and  heart.  I  cannot  remember  that, 
directly  or  indirectly,  any  reprimand  ever  came 
to  me  from  Mr.  Dana.  From  Mr.  Greeley  there 
came  more  than  one;  all  well  deserved.  With  the 
business  of  managing  the  paper  Mr.  Greeley  did 
not  much  concern  himself.  With  the  results  he 
sometimes  did,  and  when  The  Tribune  did  not 
contain  what  he  thought  it  ought  to  contain,  he 
was  apt  to  make  remarks  on  the  omission.  While 
I  was  at  Port  Royal  in  South  Carolina  there  was 
a  skirmish  at  Williamston  in  North  Carolina,  a 
hundred  miles  away.  Mr.  Greeley  thought  I  ought 
to  have  been  at  Williamston.     Very  likely  I  ought. 


Experiences  as  Journalist  131 

But  Lord  Curzon  had  not  at  that  time  announced 
his  memorable  definition  of  enterprising  journalism; 
"an  intelligent  anticipation  of  events  that  never 
occur."  That  epigram,  delivered  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  may  be  supplemented  by  an  axiom. 
The  business  of  a  war  correspondent  is  to  be,  not 
where  he  is  ordered,  but  where  he  is  wanted. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Civil  War — or,  for  that 
matter,  in  the  late  days — the  American  Press 
had  little  of  the  authority  it  has  since  acquired. 
The  heads  of  great  departments  of  Government 
still  held  themselves  responsible  primarily  to  the 
President.  Berths  on  battleships  were  not  then 
at  the  disposal  of  the  first  journalists  who  wanted 
one.  When  I  asked  Commodore  Steadman  of  the 
Bienville  to  take  me  to  Port  Royal  he  politely  told 
me  it  was  against  the  naval  regulations  to  allow 
a  civilian  on  board  a  ship  of  war.  When  I  asked 
him  who  had  a  dispensing  power  in  such  matters, 
he  said:  "If  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  should 
order  me  to  receive  you  as  a  guest,  I  should  do  so 
with  pleasure."  I  thanked  him  and  with  the 
courage  of  which  ignorance  is  the  mother,  tele- 
graphed Mr.  Welles.  No  answer.  I  telegraphed 
again,  saying  it  was  the  wish  of  Mr.  Dana  that  I 
should  go  to  South  Carolina  on  the  Bienville. 
The  effect  of  Mr.  Dana's  name  was  magical,  and 
this  time  an  answer  came;  that  Commodore 
Steadman  had  orders  to  give  me  a  berth.  I  sup- 
pose the  journalists  of  to-day  will  hardly  under- 
stand how  there  could  have  been  a  difficulty.  But 
there  were  to  be  many  difficulties.     Commodore 


132  Anglo-American  Memories 

Steadman  was  as  good  as  his  word,  and  better; 
and  a  kind  host. 

Admiral  Dupont  had  captured  the  Port  Royal 
forts  by  the  time  I  arrived.  A  finer  example  of 
the  old  type  of  naval  officer  than  Admiral  Dupont 
our  naval  service  never  had.  Captain  Raymond 
Rodgers  was  his  flag  captain;  another  example 
not  less  fine.  General  T.  W.  Sherman  was  in 
command  of  the  land  forces.  The  winter  passed 
slowly  away.  There  was  not  much  to  do  except 
study  the  negro  question ;  which  was  perhaps  more 
attractive  when  studied  at  a  distance.  General 
Butler,  bringing  the  mind  of  a  lawyer  to  bear  on 
the  problems  of  war,  and  desiring  a  legal  excuse 
for  annexing  the  personal  property  of  the  enemy 
had  announced  that  the  negroes  were  "contraband 
of  war."  For  him,  the  maxim  that  laws  are 
silent  amid  arms  did  not  hold  good.  He  liked 
to  make  laws  the  servant  of  arms.  The  negroes 
naturally  came  soon  to  be  known  as  contrabands. 
There  were  some  months  during  which  theywere 
called  hardly  anything  else.  I  called  them  so  in 
my  letters.  It  was  characteristic  of  Phillips  that, 
after  a  time,  he  wrote  to  me  to  suggest  that  Butler's 
phrase  had  done  its  work  and  that  the  negro  was  a 
negro:  a  man  entitled  to  freedom  on  other  grounds. 

But  it  was  long  before  the  word  passed  out  of 
use.  Butler  had  chosen  the  psychological  moment. 
The  "contrabands"^ — ^with  Mr.  Phillips's  per- 
mission— ^who  crowded  the  camps  were  mostly 
from  the  cotton  and  rice  plantations  of  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia.     If  you  were  not  already 


Experiences  as  Journalist  133 

a  convinced  Abolitionist,  they  were  not  likely  to 
convert  you.  But  it  was  becoming  daily  clearer 
that  the  negro  had  a  military  value;  not  at  Port 
Royal,   however,  where  he  was  only  a  burden. 

It  was  not  an  eventful  winter  at  Port  Royal. 
There  were  expeditions  by  land  and  sea,  and  there 
was  the  taking  of  Fort  Pulaski,  which  I  saw,  but 
I  was  glad  to  return  to  New  York  in  the  spring; 
and  then  to  join  General  Fremont  in  the  Shenan- 
doah Valley.  The  name  of  that  commander  was 
still  one  of  promise.  Except  the  name,  there  was 
not  much  else  for  the  purposes  of  war,  but  he  had 
a  charm  of  manner  and  a  touch  of  romance  and  a 
staff  on  which  one  or  two  foreign  adventurers  had 
places  and  did  weird  things.  "General"  Cluseret 
was  one;  an  impostor  who  afterward  fotmd  a  con- 
genial home  in  the  Paris  Commune,  with  other 
impostors.  That  campaign  came  to  nought,  and 
when  General  Pope,  in  July,  1862,  was  put  in 
command  of  the  Army  of  Virginia,  I  found  my 
way  to  the  headquarters  of  that  redoubtable 
warrior. 

With  him,  in  command  of  the  Third  Army 
Corps,  was  General  McDowell.  I  don't  know  why 
one's  memory  chooses  trivialities  as  proper  objects 
of  its  activity,  but  it  sometimes  does.  One  of  the 
most  vivid  among  the  impressions  of  those  days 
is  the  stout  figure  of  General  McDowell  on  his 
horse,  which  he  sat  ill,  his  imiform  awry,  his  sword 
pushed  behind  him  as  far  as  it  would  go,  his 
strapless  trousers  ending  abruptly  halfway  be- 
tween knee  and  ankle;   then  a  space  of  bare  flesh, 


134  Anglo-American  Memories 

and  then  some  inches  of  white  stocking,  and  then 
a  shoe.  But  he  had  miHtary  gifts  if  not  a  miHtary 
air.  He  was  talking  with  General  Pope,  whose 
unhappy  proclamation  about  his  headquarters 
in  the  saddle  had  already  been  issued.  Unlike 
McDowell,  Pope  looked  a  better  soldier  than  he 
was.  His  six  weeks'  generalship  on  the  Rappa- 
hannock ended  with  the  Second  Bull  Run,  which 
there  was  now  no  Billy  Russell  to  describe  in 
words  that  blistered  yet  were  honest  words;  and 
with  Chant  illy.  The  West  suited  Pope  better 
than  the  East,  and  to  the  West  he  returned. 
In  these  six  weeks  he  had  made  nothing  but 
mistakes  and  achieved  only  defeats. 

Personally,  General  Pope  was  pleasant  to  deal 
with.  It  was  while  he  commanded  the  Army  of 
Virginia  that  Mr.  Stanton,  then  Secretary  of  War, 
or  perhaps  General  Halleck,  issued  orders  for  the 
expulsion  of  all  correspondents  from  the  armies 
in  the  field.  General  Pope  sent  for  me  and  told 
me  of  the  order.  Impressed  at  that  time  with  the 
sternness  of  War  Office  rule,  I  answered  meekly 
that  I  supposed  I  must  go.  Said  General  Pope, 
"This  is  not  an  official  interview.  I  imagine  you 
need  n't  go  till  you  get  the  order."  A  battle  was 
thought  to  be  imminent ;  any  respite  was  welcome. 
I  thanked  him,  went  back  to  my  tent,  took  what 
I  most  needed,  and  rode  off  to  an  outpost  where  I 
had  a  friend.  The  official  notification  may  have 
been  sent  to  my  tent  but  never  reached  me.  And 
so  it  happened  that  I  saw  such  fighting  as  there 
was  on  the  Rappahannock,  and  at  the  Second 


Experiences  as  Journalist  135 

Bull  Run,  better  called  Manassas.  Interesting 
to  a  student  of  war;  not  inspiriting  to  a  patriot; 
and  not  now  to  be  described  even  in  the  briefest 
way.  My  only  aim  is  to  give  the  reader  of  to- 
day some  faint  notion  of  what  a  war  correspon 
dent's  life  in  those  days  was  like. 

One  incident  I  may  note,  as  an  example  of 
what  may  happen  to  a  general  who  neglects  the 
most  elementary  rules  and  precautions  of  war. 
At  the  end  of  a  day's  march,  at  sundown  but  the 
heavens  still  light,  General  Pope  bethought  himself 
that  he  should  like  to  see  what  the  country  ahead 
of  him  looked  like.  With  his  staff  and  a  body- 
guard of  some  sixty  sabres  he  rode  up  a  low  hill 
with  a  broad  crest,  open  ground  about  it  for  a 
hundred  yards,  and  beyond  that  in  front  a  thick, 
far-spreading  forest  line.  General  Pope  and  his 
staff  dismounted.  The  cavalry  were  ordered  to 
dismount  and  loosen  their  saddle-girths.  Just  as 
this  operation  had  been  completed  there  came 
from  the  wood  beyond  the  open  ground  a  rifle 
volley.  As  we  stood  between  the  sunset  and  the 
enemy  we  were  a  pretty  fair  target.  There  was 
no  time  for  orders.  Everybody  scrambled  into 
his  saddle  as  best  he  could  and  away  we  went. 

But  the  firing  woke  up  the  advance  guard  of 
our  army,  and  they  also  began  firing.  It  soon 
appeared  that  General  Pope  had  unwittingly 
passed  outside  his  own  lines,  so  that,  as  we  rode 
away  from  the  fire  of  the  Rebels  we  rode  into  the 
fire  of  our  own  troops.  It  was  hot  enough  but 
luckily  did  not  last  long.    The  hill  partly  protected 


136  Anglo-American  Memories 

us  from  the  sharpshooters  in  grey,  and  our  fire 
was  silenced  after  a  moment.  But  the  horses 
were  well  frightened.  It  was  impossible  to  pull 
up.  We  scattered  and  the  horses  went  on  for  a 
mile  or  so.  I  never  before  so  much  respected  the 
intelligence  of  that  animal.  There  was  nothing 
to  do  but  sit  down  in  the  saddle,  but  the  horses 
never  made  a  mistake  at  full  speed  over  an  un- 
known country,  stiff  with  fences  and  brooks,  and 
nobody  came  to  grief;  nor,  which  seems  more 
wonderful,  was  anybody  hit  by  the  bullets.  A 
good  many  remarks  were  made  which  hit  General 
Pope. 


CHAPTER  XV 

CIVIL     WAR — GENERAL     McCLELLAN — GENERAL 
HOOKER 

HTHE  failtire  of  Pope's  campaign  and  his  retreat 
*  upon  the  Capital  demoraHzed  his  army  and 
demoralized  Washington  to  an  extent  which  few 
remember.  The  degree  of  the  demoralization  may, 
however,  be  measured  by  the  reappointment  of 
General  McClellan  to  the  command  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  and  of  Virginia.  In  the  absence 
of  any  general  whose  name  inspired  confidence, 
General  McClellan  was  thought  a  synonym  of 
safety,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  caution,  and  he  had  not 
wholly  lost  the  confidence  of  his  men.  He  was  not 
expected  to  enter  upon  large  operations. 

An  engagement  near  Washington  was,  however, 
thought  probable.  On  a  hint  from  a  friendly 
official  I  rode  out  one  afternoon  from  Washington 
to  the  army  headquarters,  expecting  to  be  away 
at  most  a  day  or  two.  My  luggage  consisted  of 
a  mackintosh  and  a  tooth-brush.  I  was  absent 
six  weeks.  But  this  was  not  so  tragic  as  it  sounds, 
for  Maryland  was  a  country  in  which,  even  with  a 
war  afoot,  it  was  possible  to  buy  things.  In  the 
interval,  I  had  seen  two  battles;  South  Mountain 

137 


138  Anglo-American  Memories 

and  Antietam,  which  came  as  near  to  being  real 
war  as  could  be  expected  under  General  McClellan. 
Correspondents  were  not  now  allowed  with  the 
army  in  the  field  any  more  than  in  General  Pope's 
time.  We  were  contraband.  But  so  long  as  we 
yielded  nominally  to  the  inhibition  of  the  War 
Office  nobody  seemed  to  care.  The  War  Office 
was  then  named  Edwin  M.  Stanton.  To  this 
day  I  have  never  been  able  to  understand  how 
Mr.  Stanton — a  man  all  energy,  directness  of  mind 
and  purpose,  scorning  compromise  and  half  mea- 
sures and  scorning  those  who  practised  them — 
came  to  assent  to  the  replacing  of  General  McClel- 
lan at  the  head  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
But  he  did,  and  at  first  General  McClellan  seemed 
to  justify  the  new  hopes  newly  placed  in  him. 
He  might  have  sat  still,  but  after  providing  for 
the  defence  of  Washington  he  moved  out  upon  an 
aggressive-defensive  campaign.  General  Lee  had 
entered  Maryland  and  McClellan  went  in  search 
of  him.  He  moved  slowly,  but  he  moved.  His 
soldiers,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  believed  in  him 
in  spite  of  his  disasters  in  the  Peninsula.  His 
generals,  I  think,  did  not.  I  saw  and  talked  with 
some  of  them,  for  I  found  myself  making  this 
campaign  as  a  volunteer  aide-de-camp  to  General 
Sedgwick.  I  had  met  General  Sedgwick  before, 
and  when  I  had  to  consider  how  I  was  to  get 
leave  to  go  with  the  troops  I  went  to  General 
Sedgwick  and  told  him  my  difficulty.  **Come 
along  with  me,"  he  said.  That  was  all  the 
appointment   I   had.     It   would   not   have   been 


Civil  War  139 

possible  in  a  European  army,  but  in  the  armies  of 
the  Union  many  things  were  possible.  And  it  was 
quite  sufficient  to  take  me  outside  of  Mr.  Stanton's 
order  about  correspondents.  I  was  not  a  corre- 
spondent; I  was  one  of  General  Sedgwick's  aids. 
His  kindness  to  me  was  a  service  for  which  I  could 
never  be  too  grateful. 

It  was  a  still  greater  service  because  General 
Sedgwick  belonged  in  the  category  of  fighting 
generals,  who  were  none  too  popular  with  the 
general  commanding,  since  he,  mixing  politics  with 
war,  believed  in  half -beating  the  enemy.  Sedg- 
wick, so  far  as  I  know,  had  no  politics.  Certainly 
he  had  none  in  the  field.  He  was  there  to  fight, 
not  to  build  bridges  over  which  the  Rebels  might 
come  back  into  the  Union.  It  had  become  known 
that  General  Lee  had  entered  Maryland,  to  enable 
her  people  "to  throw  off  a  foreign  yoke."  He 
was  not,  as  it  turned  out,  a  welcome  guest.  Mary- 
land would  have  been  much  obliged  to  him  if 
he  had  stayed  on  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac. 
McClellan,  taking  time  to  think  things  over, 
and  perhaps  not  liking  to  be  considered  a  foreign 
yoke,  advanced  toward  Frederick,  Lee's  head- 
quarters for  the  moment,  at  the  breakneck  pace 
of  six  or  seven  miles  a  day.  I  suppose  McClellan 
must  have  known  that  Lee  wanted  Harper's 
Ferry.  But  even  after  Lee's  general  order  had 
come  into  his  possession,  with  specific  directions 
for  the  movement  of  each  division,  McClellan 
hesitated  and  finally  took  the  wrong  road. 

Hence  the  battle  of  South  Mountain;  a  pictur- 


140  Anglo-American  Memories 

esque  performance ;  part  of  which  I  watched  by  the 
side  of  General  McClellan  himself.  At  the  moment 
he  was  quite  alone ;  his  staff  away  carrying  orders ; 
an  officer  now  and  then  rettirning  only  to  be  sent 
off  again  at  once.  The  general  presently  saw  that 
a  stranger  was  standing  near  him  and  asked  a 
question  or  two.  I  offered  him  my  field  glasses, 
but  he  said  he  could  see  very  well  and  decHned 
them. 

There  was  in  his  appearance  something  pre- 
possessing if  not  commanding:  something  rather 
scholarly  than  warlike;  amiable,  well-bred,  cold, 
and  yet  almost  sympathetic.  His  troops  were 
slowly  forcing  their  way  up  the  steep  moimtain 
side  upon  which  we  looked.  It  was,  in  fact,  from 
a  military  point  of  view,  a  very  critical  moment, 
but  this  general  commanding  had  a  singular  air 
of  detachment;  almost  that  of  a  disinterested 
spectator:  or  of  a  general  watching  raanoeuvres. 
The  business  of  war  seemed  to  be  to  him  merely 
what  I  ago  calls  ''the  bookish  theoric";  and  he 
himself  "a  great  arithmetician."  He  had  the 
face  of  a  man  of  thought.  Napoleonic,  said  his 
idolaters,  who  called  him  the  young  Napoleon: 
not  considering  dates,  or  not  aware  that  when 
Napoleon  planned  and  won  his  great  Itahan 
campaign,  a  masterpiece  of  war,  he  was  twenty- 
seven.  When  McClellan  planned  and  lost  his 
Peninsula  campaign,  he  was  thirty-seven.  But 
there  he  stood;  an  interesting  figure;  as  if  star- 
gazing. Compact,  square-chested,  his  face  well 
moulded.     That  he  was  directing  the  assault  of 


Civil  War  141 

the  forces  struggling  up  yonder  hill  no  human 
being  could  have  guessed.  Whether  his  tailor 
had  been  too  stingy  in  the  material  of  his  uniform, 
or  Nature  too  lavish  in  the  contents  of  it,  he  was 
uncomfortable;  he  and  his  clothes  did  not  seem 
made  for  each  other.  There  were  wrinkles. 
There  was  a  missing  button;  nor  was  he  a  well 
set-up  figiu'e.  It  may  well  enough  have  been 
because  of  his  military  career,  but  I  thought  an 
air  of  indecision  hung  about  him.  Men  had  died 
by  hundreds  and  were  yet  to  die  because  he  could 
not  make  up  his  mind,  nor  push  an  attack  home. 
They  were  dying  now,  as  he  looked  on;  they  lay 
dying  and  dead  on  the  opposite  slope ;  for  when  he 
had  at  last  made  up  his  mind  he  had  made  it  up 
wrong.  The  battle  of  South  Mountain  was  a 
victory  in  a  sense,  but  it  need  never  have  been 
fought.  A  position  which  might  have  been  turned 
had  been  forced,  and  the  road  to  Antietam  lay 
open. 

Again  it  was  like  McClellan,  on  approaching 
Sharpsburg  and  the  battleground  of  Antietam,  to 
halt  and  think  it  over.  If  he  had  struck  at  once, 
he  would  have  found  Lee's  army  divided  and  the 
path  weakly  held.  But  McClellan  had  it  not  in 
him  to  do  anything  at  once,  or  to  do  it  once  for  all. 
The  armies  faced  each  other  idly  all  that  day. 
In  the  afternoon  I  heard  that  a  flank  movement 
on  the  enemy's  left  was  to  be  tried  under  General 
Hooker.  So  I  rode  over  and  joined  that  general's 
command.  It  was  well  known  that  Hooker  would 
fight  if  he  was  allowed.     He  was  already  called 


142  Anglo-American  Memories 

"Fighting  Joe";  a  well-earned  sobriquet.  He  put 
his  troops  in  motion  about  four  o'clock  that  after- 
noon, himself  at  the  head  as  usual,  doing  his  own 
reconnoitring.  I  rode  with  the  staff,  not  one  of 
whom  I  knew.  Nobody  took  the  trouble  to  ask 
who  I  was  or  why  I  was  there.  For  aught  they 
knew  I  might  have  been  a  Rebel  spy. 

General  Hooker  had  his  own  way  of  doing  things. 
This  was  what  might  be  called  a  reconnaissance 
in  force;  two  brigades  in  line  pushing  steadily 
forward;  a  force  of  cavalry  in  advance,  two  divi- 
sions following.  By  the  time  we  came  in  touch 
with  Lee's  left,  it  was  dusk.  We  could  see  the 
flashes  of  the  Rebel  rifles  which  drove  Hooker's 
cavalry  back  upon  the  infantry  division.  Hooker 
played  the  game  of  war  as  the  youngest  member 
of  a  football  team  plays  football.  He  had  to  the 
full  that  joy  of  battle  which  McClellan  never  had 
at  all ;  and  showed  it. 

Between  the  man  by  whose  side  I  had  stood  two 
days  before  at  South  Mountain,  and  the  man  near 
whom  I  now  rode,  the  contrast  was  complete. 
McClellan  was  not  a  general;  he  was  a  Council  of 
War,  and  it  is  a  military  axiom  that  councils  of 
war  never  fight.  He  surveyed  the  field  of  battle 
beneath  him  at  Turner's  Gap  as  a  chess-player 
surveys  the  board.  At  the  naval  battle  of  San- 
tiago, as  the  Spanish  ships  were  sinking,  our  blue- 
jackets began  to  cheer.  Said  Admiral  Philip: 
"  Don't  cheer,  boys.  They  are  dying  over  there. " 
If  everything  else  about  Philip  should  be  forgot- 
ten, that  will  be  remembered;  and  he  will  be  loved 


Civil  War  143 

for  it;  for  this  one  touch  of  human  feeling  for  a 
human  enemy  amid  the  hell  of  war.  But  for  the 
pawns  and  pieces  the  chess-player  sends  to  slaugh- 
ter he  has  no  regrets.  I  don't  say  McClellan  had 
none  for  the  men  whom  his  mistaken  strategy 
drove  to  death.  All  I  say  is  that  as  I  looked  at  him 
I  saw  no  sign  of  it.  A  general,  we  are  told,  can 
no  more  afford  to  have  feelings  amid  a  battle  than 
a  surgeon  with  the  knife  in  his  hand  can  feel  for 
his  patient.  It  may  be.  But  Napoleon,  who  is 
always  cited  as  the  highest  example  of  indifference 
to  the  lives  of  men,  is  perhaps  the  best  example 
to  the  contrary.  He  would  sacrifice  a  brigade 
without  scruple  for  a  purpose;  never  one  single 
armed  man  without  a  purpose.  He  had  men 
enough  to  consume  for  victory;  never  one  to 
squander.  He  was  an  economist  of  human  life, 
though  for  purely  military  reasons.  It  is  awful 
to  reflect  how  many  thousands  of  Americans  in 
these  early  Civil  War  days  were  sent  to  death 
uselessly  by  the  ignorance  of  their  commanders; 
or  as  in  McClellan's  case  by  his  irresolution,  and 
his  incapacity  for  the  handling  of  troops  in  the 
field. 

General  Hooker's  was  a  face  which  lighted  up 
when  the  battle  began.  The  man  seemed  trans- 
formed. He  rode  carelessly  on  the  march,  but  sat 
straight  up  in  his  saddle  as  the  martial  music  of 
the  bullets  whistled  past  him.  He  was  a  leader 
of  men,  and  his  men  would  have  followed  him  and 
did  follow  him  wherever  he  led.  Hesitation,  delay, 
he  hated  them.     "If  they  had  let  us  start  earlier 


144  Anglo-American  Memories 

we  might  have  finished  to-night,"  he  muttered. 
But  night  was  upon  us,  and  even  Hooker  could 
not  fight  an  unknown  force  on  unknown  ground 
in  the  dark.  It  was  nine  o'clock  when  we  went 
into  camp ;  Union  and  Rebel  lines  so  close  that  the 
pickets  got  mixed  and  captured  each  other. 
"Camp"  is  a  figure  of  speech.  We  lay  down  on 
the  ground  as  we  were.  I  slept  with  my  horse's 
bridle  round  my  arm.  At  four  o'clock  next  morn- 
ing, with  the  earliest  light  of  a  coming  dawn  and 
as  soon  as  a  man  could  see  the  sights  on  his  rifle, 
the  battle  began. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CIVIL  WAR — PERSONAL  INCIDENTS  AT  ANTIETAM 

/GENERAL  HOOKER  was  about  the  first  man 
^--*  in  the  saddle.  The  pickets  had  begun 
sniping  long  before  dawn.  My  bivouac  was  with- 
in sight  of  his  tent.  "The  old  man,"  said  one  of 
his  staff,  "would  have  liked  to  be  with  the 
pickets. "  No  doubt.  He  would  have  liked  to  be 
anywhere  in  the  field  where  the  chance  of  a  bullet 
coming  his  way  was  greatest.  Kinglake  has  a 
passage  which  might  have  been  written  for  Hooker. 
That  accomplished  historian  of  war  remarks  that 
the  reasons  against  fighting  a  battle  are  always 
stronger  than  the  reasons  for  fighting.  If  it  were 
to  be  decided  on  the  balance  of  arguments,  no  battle 
would  ever  be  begun.  But  there  are  Generals  who 
have  in  them  an  overmastering  impulse  of  battle; 
it  is  in  the  blood;  temperament  prevails  over 
argimient,  and  they  are  the  men  who  carry  on 
war.  Hooker  was  one  of  them.  He  loved  fight- 
ing for  fighting's  sake,  and  with  the  apostles  of 
peace  at  any  price  he  had  not  an  atom  of  sym- 
pathy. He  would  have  thought  Herbert  Spencer 
something  less  than  a  man,  as  he  was;  and  Mr. 
Carnegie,  if  he  had  been  anything  then  but  the 
°  143 


146  Anglo-American  Memories 

boy  he  has  never  outgrown,  a  worthy  disciple  of 
an  unworthy  master. 

No,  I  am  not  keeping  you  waiting  for  the  story 
of  Antietam,  for  I  am  not  going  to  re-tell  it.  But 
General  Hooker,  on  that  day  a  hero,  has  had  hard 
measure  since,  and  I  like  to  do  him  what  justice 
I  can.  I  liked  the  man.  My  acquaintance  with 
him  began  that  morning.  To  hear  him  issue  an 
order  was  like  the  sound  of  the  first  cannon  shot. 
He  gathered  up  brigades  and  divisions  in  his  hand, 
and  sent  them  straight  against  the  enemy.  That 
is  not  at  all  a  piece  of  rhetoric.  It  is  a  literal  state- 
ment of  the  literal  fact.  His  men  loved  him  and 
dreaded  him.  Early  in  the  morning  he  had  scat- 
tered his  staff  to  the  winds,  and  was  riding  alone, 
on  the  firing  line.  Looking  about  him  for  an 
officer,  he  saw  me  and  said,  "Who  are  you?" 
I  told  him.  "Will  you  take  an  order  for  me?" 
"  Certainly. "  There  was  a  regiment  which  seemed 
wavering,  and  had  fallen  a  little  back.  "Tell  the 
colonel  of  that  regiment  to  take  his  men  to  the 
front  and  keep  them  there."  I  gave  the  order. 
Again  the  question: 

"Who  are  you?" 

"The order  is  General  Hooker's." 

"It  must  come  to  me  from  a  staff  officer  or  from 
my  brigade  commander." 

"Very  good.     I  will  report  to  General  Hooker 
that  you  decline  to  obey." 

"  Oh,  for  God's  sake  don't  do  that !  The  Rebels 
are  too  many  for  us  but  I  had  rather  face  them 
than  Hooker. " 


Civil  War  147 

And  on  went  his  regiment.  I  returned  to 
Hooker  and  reported.  "Yes,"  said  he,  "I  see, 
but  don't  let  the  next  man  talk  so  much";  and  I 
was  sent  off  again. 

I  was  with  Hooker  when  he  was  wounded,  about 
nine  o'clock.  He  was,  as  he  always  was,  the 
finest  target  in  the  field  and  a  natural  mark  for 
the  Rebel  sharpshooters.  It  was  easy  to  see  that 
they  followed  him,  and  their  bullets  followed  him, 
wherever  he  rode.  I  pointed  that  out  to  him. 
He  replied  with  an  explosion  of  curses  and  con- 
tempt. He  did  not  believe  he  could  be  hit.  No 
Rebel  bullet  was  to  find  its  billet  in  him.  He  was 
tall  and  sat  high  in  his  saddle.  He  was  of  course 
in  uniform — no  khaki  in  those  days,  but  bright 
blue,  and  gilt  buttons  and  all  the  rest  of  it;  his 
high-coloured  face  itself  a  mark,  and  he  rode  a 
white  horse.  Not  long  after  I  had  spoken,  a 
bullet  struck  him  in  the  foot.  It  was  the  best 
bullet  those  troublesome  gentlemen  in  grey  fired 
that  morning.  He  swayed  in  the  saddle  and  fell, 
or  would  have  fallen  if  he  had  not  been  caught. 
Then  they  carried  to  the  rear  the  hope  of  the 
Union  arms  for  that  day;  and  for  other  days  to 
follow. 

I  saw  him  again  about  four  in  the  afternoon. 
I  had  been  asked  to  see  him  by  one  or  two  of 
General  McClellan's  staff  who  knew  I  had  been 
with  General  Hooker  in  the  morning.  I  have 
said  long  since  what  the  errand  was  they  wished  to 
lay  upon  me,  or  what  I  supposed  it  to  be.  General 
Wilson  explained  to  me,  on  the  publication  of  that 


148  Anglo-American  Memories 

article,  that  I  had  mistaken  the  meaning  of  the 
men  I  talked  with ;  that  the  officers  who  asked  me 
to  go  never  designed  that  I  should  suggest  to 
Hooker  to  take  command  of  the  army,  but  only 
to  find  out  whether  he  could  resume  the  command 
of  his  own  corps;  and  perhaps  of  another;  not 
waiting  for  orders,  apparently.  It  does  not  much 
matter,  for  I,  of  course,  declined  to  carry  any  such 
message  as  I  thought  was  proposed  to  me.  It  was 
for  the  officers  themselves,  if  for  anybody,  to  carry 
it.  If  they  had  any  such  purpose  in  mind,  it  was 
mutiny;  patriotic  but  unmilitary.  Well  might 
they  lose  patience  when  they  saw  the  promise  of 
a  shattered  rebellion  fade  before  their  eyes.  But 
that  day  was  not  yet,  happily,  since  a  premature 
victory  over  the  South  would  have  left  great 
questions  imsettled.  This  scheme,  or  dream,  was 
none  the  less  interesting  because  it  showed,  as  I 
thought,  what  McClellan's  own  officers  thought 
of  his  generalship  on  that  fateful  day ;  and  possibly 
of  something  besides  his  generalship. 

But  I  went  to  the  little  square  red-brick  house 
where  Hooker  had  been  taken,  and  was  allowed  to 
see  him.  It  needed  no  questions.  He  was  too 
evidently  done  for;  till  that  day  and  many  days  to 
come  had  passed.  He  was  suffering  great  pain. 
I  told  him  I  had  come  by  request  of  some  of  General 
McClellan's  staff  to  ask  how  he  was. 

"You  can  see  for  yourself, "  he  answered  faintly. 
"The  pain  is  bad  enough,  but  what  I  hate  to  think 
is  that  it  was  a  Rebel  bullet  which  did  it. " 

His  courage  was  indomitable;   his  contempt  for 


Civil  War  149 

the  Rebels  not  one  whit  abated.  He  asked  for 
the  latest  news  from  the  field  of  battle.  I  told 
him  it  was  no  longer  a  field  of  battle;  that  McClel- 
lan  was  resting  on  his  arms;  that  he  would  not 
use  his  reserves ;  and  that  there  was  every  prospect 
that  Lee  would  escape  with  his  beaten  army  across 
the  Potomac.     He  raged  at  the  thought. 

"Unless,"— I  added. 

"  You  need  not  go  on, "  retorted  Hooker.  "  You 
must  see  I  cannot  move." 

It  tortured  him  to  think  that  his  morning's 
work  was  half  thrown  away;  and  that  McClellan, 
with  some  fourteen  thousand  fresh  troops,  was 
content  to  see  the  sun  go  down  on  an  indecisive 
day.  Into  his  face,  white  with  the  pain  which 
tore  at  him,  came  heat  and  colour  and  the  anger 
of  an  indignant  soul.  The  surgeon  shook  his  head, 
and  I  said  good-bye. 

I  rode  back  to  headquarters;  only  to  find  that 
the  decision  had  been  taken  or  perhaps  that  Mc- 
Clellan was  incapable  of  any  decision;  his  mind 
halting,  as  usual,  between  two  opinions;  and  the 
negative  in  the  end  prevailing  over  the  positive. 
He  had  an  irresistible  impulse  to  do  nothing  he 
could  leave  undone.  I  asked  for  General  Sedg- 
wick. He  had  been  badly  wounded — I  think 
thrice  wounded,  but  had  fought  on  till  the  third — 
and  been  carried  off  the  field.  Nobody  could  tell 
me  where  he  was.  I  saw  him  once  again.  A 
Rebel  bullet  laid  him  low  at  Spottsylvania.  One 
of  the  best  generals  we  had:  a  man  of  utterly 
transparent    honesty,    simplicity,    and    truth    of 


150  Anglo-American  Memories 

character;  trusted,  beloved,  ardently  followed  by 
his  men ;  a  commander  who  had  done  great  things 
and  was  capable  of  greater. 

Since  it  was  too  late  to  get  anything  through 
to  New  York  that  night,  I  wasted  some  hours  in 
one  camp  and  another.  Perhaps  they  were  not 
wasted.  I  heard  everywhere  a  chorus  of  execra- 
tion. McClellan's  name  was  hardly  mentioned 
without  a  curse.  Not  a  soldier  in  the  ranks  who 
did  not  believe  it  had  been  possible  to  drive  Lee 
into  and  over  the  Potomac. 

At  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  I  started  for 
Frederick,  thirty  miles  away.  My  horse  had  two 
bullets  in  him,  and  I  had  to  commandeer  another 
from  a  colleague,  who  objected  but  yielded.  I 
reached  Frederick  at  three  in  the  morning,  sleeping 
in  the  saddle  a  good  part  of  the  way,  as  I  had  been 
up  since  four  o'clock  of  the  morning  before.  The 
telegraph  office  was  closed,  and  nobody  knew 
where  the  telegraph  clerk  lived.  I  thought  it  odd 
that  in  time  of  war,  and  after  an  important  battle, 
the  Government  at  Washington  should  have  kept 
open  no  means  of  communication  with  the  general 
commanding;  but  so  it  was.  Frederick  was  the 
nearest  and,  so  far  as  I  knew,  the  only  available 
telegraph  office.  There  was  no  field  telegraph. 
The  wires  were  not  down,  but  the  operator  was 
sleeping  peacefully  elsewhere. 

He  reappeared  about  seven.  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  take  a  message.  After  some  demur  he 
promised  to  try  to  get  a  short  one  through.  I  sat 
down  on  a  log  by  the  door  and  began-  to  write, 


Civil  War  151 

giving  him  sheet  after  sheet  till  a  column  or  more 
had  gone,  as  I  supposed,  to  New  York.  The 
Tribune  had  been  notified  that  a  message  was 
coming.  But  neither  my  private  notice  to  The 
Tribune  nor  my  story  of  the  battle  was  sent  to 
New  York.  It  was  sent  to  the  War  Office  at 
Washington,  and  such  was  the  disorder  then 
prevailing  that  it  was  the  first  news,  or  perhaps 
only  the  first  coherent  account,  of  the  battle  which 
reached  the  War  Office  and  the  President. 
They  kept  it  to  themselves  during  all  that  day. 
At  night,  in  time  for  next  morning's  paper,  it 
was  released,  wired  on,  and  duly  appeared  in 
Saturday's  Tribune. 

I  never  doubted  that  when  my  telegram  had 
once  been  sent  I  should  find  a  train  to  Baltimore. 
There  was  none.  I  saw  one  official  after  another. 
Nobody  knew,  or  nobody  would  say,  when  a  train 
would  leave.  It  might  go  at  any  moment,  or  not 
at  all.  I  tried  in  vain  for  a  special.  There  could 
be  no  special  without  military  warrant.  I  wired 
the  War  Office  and  got  no  answer.  It  was  trying 
work,  for  what  I  had  hoped  was  to  reach  New 
York  in  time  for  Saturday  morning's  paper. 
Finally,  I  was  allowed  to  travel  by  a  mixed  train 
which  arrived  in  Baltimore  some  ten  minutes  before 
the  Washington  express  for  New  York  came  in. 

That  is  all  the  margin  there  was.  The  cars 
were  lighted  by  oil  lamps,  dimly  burning,  one  at 
each  end  of  the  car,  hung  near  the  ceiling.  I  had 
to  choose  between  the  chance  of  wiring  a  long 
and  as  yet  unwritten  dispatch  from  Baltimore, 


152  Anglo-American  Memories 

and  going  myself  by  train.  The  first  word  at 
the  telegraph  office  settled  it.  They  would 
promise  nothing. 

So  by  the  light  of  the  one  dim  oil  lamp,  above 
my  head,  standing,  I  began  a  narrative  of  the 
battle  of  Antietam.  I  wrote  with  a  pencil.  It 
must  have  been  about  nine  o'clock  when  I  began. 
I  ended  as  the  train  rolled  into  Jersey  City  by 
daylight.  The  office  knew  that  a  dispatch  was 
coming,  the  compositors  were  waiting,  and  at  six 
o'clock  the  worst  piece  of  manuscript  the  oldest 
of  them  had  ever  seen  was  put  into  their  hands. 
But  they  were  good  men,  and  there  were  proof- 
readers of  genius,  and  somewhere  near  the  uptown 
breakfast  hour,  The  Tribune  issued  an  extra  with 
six  columns  about  Antietam. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

A  FRAGMENT  OF  UNWRITTEN  MILITARY  HISTORY 

BY  this  time — September,  1862 — Mr.  Dana  had 
retired  from  The  Tribune  and  Mr.  Sydney 
Howard  Gay  had  become  managing  editor  in  Mr. 
Dana's  place.  The  natural  gift  of  command 
which  belonged  to  Mr.  Dana  had  not  descended 
upon  Mr.  Gay ;  it  never  does  descend ;  but  he  was 
capable  of  a  quick  decision,  and  when,  having 
returned  that  morning  from  Antietam,  I  saw  him 
in  the  afternoon,  he  was  in  a  managing-editor 
state  of  mind.  With  much  firm  kindness  of  man- 
ner he  suggested  that  I  should  start  that  evening 
to  rejoin  the  army.  I  said  yes,  because,  in  my 
inexperience  and  in  my  artless  awe  of  my  superior 
officer,  I  did  not  know  what  else  to  say.  And  I 
took  the  night  train  to  Washington. 

With  the  discomforts  of  the  night  railway 
service  between  New  York  and  Washington  I  had 
already  made  acquaintance.  They  were  con- 
siderable, but  less  than  they  are  now.  There  was 
then  no  overheated  Pullman  car;  there  was  no 
overbearing  coloured  porter  to  patronize  you,  and 
to  brush  the  dust  from  other  people's  clothes  into 
your  face,  and  to  heat  the  furnace — by  which  I 

153 


154  Anglo-American  Memories 

mean  the  steam-heated  car — seven  times  hotter; 
there  was  no  promiscuous  dormitory.  When  Lord 
Charles  Beresford  was  last  in  Washington,  four  or 
five  years  ago,  he  told  me  one  afternoon  he  was 
going  to  New  York  by  the  midnight  train.  When 
I  suggested  that  the  day  service  was  less  unpleas- 
ant than  the  night,  he  answered:  "Oh,  it  does  n't 
matter  to  me.  I  can  sleep  on  a  clothes-line." 
There  spoke  the  sailor  lad  of  whom  there  are  still 
traces  in  the  great  admiral  of  to-day.  I  have 
never  tried  the  clothes-line,  but  I  had  lately  been 
sleeping  for  many  nights  together  on  the  sacred 
soil  of  Virginia,  or  the  perhaps  less  sacred  soil  of 
Maryland,  thinking  myself  lucky  if  I  could  borrow 
two  rails  from  a  Virginia  fence  to  sleep  between. 
I  am  not  sure  whether  I  liked  the  stiff  seats  of  the 
old-fashioned  coach  much  better,  but  I  am  quite 
sure  I  should  prefer  the  open  air  and  the  sacred 
soil  and  the  Virginia  rails  to  the  "luxiuious" 
stuffiness  of  the  modem  sleeping  car.  The  only 
real  luxury  I  know  of  in  American  railway  travel 
is  the  private  car. 

However,  I  might  as  well  have  stayed  in  New 
York,  for  I  was  soon  invalided  back  again  with 
a  camp  fever,  and  then  remained  in  the  office  to 
write  war  "editorials,"  and  others. 

But  I  was  to  make  one  more  journey  to  the 
field,  and  once  more  to  see  General  Hooker.  Gen- 
eral McClellan,  thinking  it  over  for  a  month  and 
more  after  Antietam,  had  finally  crossed  the 
Potomac,  dawdled  about  a  little,  and  been  ordered 
to  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  well  out  of  the  way  of 


Unwritten  Military  History  155 

further  mischief.  General  Burnside  had  suc- 
ceeded McClellan;  had  fought  and  lost  the  battle 
of  Fredericksburg,  with  the  maximum  of  incom- 
petency, in  December,  1862;  had  McClellanized 
till  January  25th,  and  had  then  yielded  up  the 
command  of  the  unhappy  Army  of  the  Potomac 
to  General  Hooker.  Fighting  Joe  spent  some 
three  months  in  getting  his  army  into  good  fighting 
order;  then  tried  his  luck  against  Lee  and  Stone- 
wall Jackson  at  Chancellorsville.  Luck  in  the 
shape  of  a  bullet,  whether  Union  or  Rebel,  took 
Jackson  out  of  his  way ;  but  Lee,  perhaps  for  the 
first  time,  showed  the  greater  qualities  of  general- 
ship, and  Hooker,  at  the  end  of  a  three  days' 
battle,  was  defeated;  the  Union  forces  recrossing 
the  Rappahannock  on  the  night  of  May  4th,  1863. 
I  must  apologize  for  restating,  even  in  the 
briefest  form,  facts  which  everybody  knows.  I 
do  it  because,  soon  after  Chancellorsville,  I  was 
sent  again  to  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  on  a  mis- 
sion of  inquiry.  It  was  almost  the  blackest  period 
of  the  war;  the  darkness  before  dawn;  a  dawn 
which  was  to  come  from  the  West  as  well  as  from 
the  East.  The  army  was  demoralized;  so  was 
public  opinion;  so,  I  think,  were  the  mihtary 
authorities  in  Washington;  and  nobody  knew 
where  to  look  for  a  commanding  officer.  There 
remained  not  one  in  whom  the  President  or 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  faith.  They  were 
groping  for  a  General,  and  groping  so  far  as  the 
East  was  concerned,  in  the  dark.  My  business 
was  to  throw  such  light  as  I  could  on  the  causes 


156  Anglo-American  Memories 

of  Hooker's  defeat,  and  to  find  out,  if  I  could,  whom 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  wanted  as  leader.  And 
I  was  given  to  understand  that  the  results  of  my 
inquiry  would  be  published  in  The  Tribune. 

They  never  were.  I  spent  rather  more  than  a 
week  with  the  army,  at  one  headquarters  or 
another.  General  Hooker,  to  whom  I  of  coiirse 
presented  myself  in  the  first  instance,  very  kindly 
asked  me  to  be  his  guest,  but  that  was  impossible. 
I  could  not  be  the  guest  of  the  man  whom  I  was  to 
investigate.  I  told  Hooker  my  errand.  As  Gen- 
eral commanding,  he  had  the  right  to  order  me  out 
of  the  lines,  which  would  have  brought  my  mission 
to  an  end.  Instead,  he  offered  me  all  facilities 
consistent  with  his  duty.  "If  I  am  to  be  inves- 
tigated," he  said,  rather  grimly,  "it  might  as  well 
be  by  you  as  anybody."  Indeed,  he  had  a  kind- 
ness for  me,  and  had  offered  me,  or  tried  to  offer, 
after  Antietam,  a  place  on  his  staff;  which  miHtary 
regulations  did  not  permit.  It  was  not  necessary 
to  tell  him  I  had  every  wish  he  might  come  well  out 
of  the  examination.     But  I  had. 

So  I  went  about  to  one  general  and  another  and 
from  one  corps  to  another,  and  talked  with  men  of 
all  ranks  and  of  no  rank.  I  knew  General  Sedg- 
wick best  and  went  to  him  first.  He  was  a  man 
of  action  rather  than  words,  and  was  reluctant  to 
talk.  Besides,  his  share  in  the  battle  had  been 
greater  than  anybody's  but  Hooker  himself.  He 
told  me  what  his  orders  had  been,  and  how  he  had 
tried  to  carry  them  out.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  he 
had  been  successful.     He  had  crossed  the  Rap- 


Unwritten  Military  History  157 

pahannock  in  the  early  morning  of  May  3rd, 
carried  the  heights  near  Fredericksburg  by  noon, 
advanced  toward  Chancellor's  with  intent  to  turn 
Lee's  rear,  till  he  brought  up  against  an  immovable 
Rebel  force  late  in  the  afternoon.  He  held  his 
position  all  night  and  during  most  of  the  next  day, 
the  4th.  Then  Lee,  who  was  at  his  best,  brought 
up  more  troops,  and  forced  Sedgwick  back  across 
the  river  at  night.  He  had  lost  five  thousand 
men. 

From  what  Sedgwick  told  me  and  from  what 
others  told  me,  I  gathered  that  this  was  the  critical 
point  of  the  battle.  If  Hooker  could  either  have 
kept  these  Rebel  reinforcements  busy  elsewhere, 
or  have  strengthened  Sedgwick  earlier  in  the  day, 
the  Rebel  lines  would  have  been  broken  or  turned, 
and  the  battle  won.  But  he  was  outmanoeuvred 
by  Lee,  here  and  elsewhere. 

That  is  Chancellorsville  in  a  nutshell.  Hooker 
was,  I  suppose,  overweighted  with  the  command  of 
an  army  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men. 
As  a  corps  commander  and  for  fighting  purposes, 
he  had  no  equal.  But  he  was  pitted  against  a 
General  whom  European  critics  have  praised  till 
they  seem  inclined  to  put  him  on  a  level  with 
Hannibal  or  Moltke,  where  he  certainly  does  not 
belong.  But  he  was  good  enough  in  these  May 
days  of  1863  to  defeat  General  Hooker. 

There  have  been  stories  in  print  to  which  I 
refer  because  they  have  been  in  print.  It  was  said 
of  General  Hooker,  as  it  was  said  of  a  greater 
General  in  this  Civil  War,  that  he  drank.     Lin- 


158  Ano^lo- American  Memories 


coin's  wish  to  send  a  barrel  of  Grant's  whisky  to 
every  other  General  in  the  Union  armies  had  not 
then  been  expressed.  But,  in  the  first  place, 
having  heard  this  rumour  before  I  left  New  York, 
I  asked  everybody  likely  to  know,  and  not  one 
witness  could  testify  to  having  seen  General 
Hooker  the  worse  for  whisky.  There  is,  in  the 
second  place,  a  statement  that  while  Hooker  was 
standing,  on  the  morning  of  the  3rd,  near  Chan- 
cellor's Inn,  the  porch  was  struck  by  a  cannon 
shot,  and  a  beam  fell  on  Hooker's  head.  He  was 
not  disabled,  but  the  working  power  of  his  brain, 
at  high  pressure  night  and  day  for  some  sixty 
hours,  may  well  have  been  impaired.  One  story 
may  be  set  off  against  the  other. 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
had  lost  confidence  in  General  Hooker.  It  had 
also  lost  confidence  in  itself.  It  was  a  beaten  army 
and  the  soul  had  gone  out  of  it.  On  both  points, 
the  evidence  was  overwhelming.  There  could  be 
no  doubt  that  I  must  report  to  Mr.  Gay  that 
the  demoralization  was  complete.  When  I  set 
myself  to  discover  a  remedy — ^in  other  words  a 
possible  successor  to  General  Hooker — I  was  at  a 
loss.  General  Sedgwick's  officers  and  men  be- 
lieved in  him,  but  the  army  as  a  whole  thought 
he  was  in  his  right  place  as  a  corps  commander. 
Other  names  were  mentioned  and  put  aside. 
There  was  no  reason  why  officers  high  in  rank 
should  talk  freely  to  me.  There  was  every  reason 
they  should  not  talk  freely  to  the  representative 
of  The  Tribujie,  if  The  Tribune  was  to  publish  an 


Unwritten  Military  History  159 

account  of  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  the  army 
with  reference  to  a  new  commander.  I  endeav- 
oured to  make  it  clear  that  all  statements  on 
this  matter  would  be  treated  as  confidential. 
Still,  as  you  may  imagine,  there  were  difficulties. 

If  one  man  was  named  more  often  than  another, 
it  was  General  Meade.  I  was  urged  by  a  number 
of  officers — mostly  staff  officers — as  I  had  been  at 
Antietam  in  connection  with  General  Hooker,  to  see 
General  Meade  and  lay  before  him  what  my  friends 
declared  to  be  the  wish  of  the  army,  or  of  a  great 
part  of  the  army.  They  wanted  him  to  succeed 
General  Hooker.  It  did  not  seem  desirable  to 
pledge  myself  to  anything,  but  I  did  see  General 
Meade.  I  had  met  him  but  once  before.  He 
was  just  mounting  his  horse,  and  proposed  that 
we  should  ride  together.  Explaining  that,  though 
I  came  on  no  mission  and  with  no  authority,  I  had 
been  asked  to  lay  certain  matters  before  him,  I 
gave  him  such  an  account  as  I  could  of  what  my 
friends  thought  the  army  wanted.  When  he  saw 
what  was  coming,  he  turned  as  if  to  interrupt. 
"I  don't  know  that  I  ought  to  listen  to  you,"  he 
said.  But  I  asked  him  to  consider  that  I  was  a 
civilian,  that  I  was  in  no  sense  an  ambassador, 
that  I  brought  no  proposals,  that  he  was  asked  to 
take  no  step  whatever  not  even  to  say  anything, 
but  only  to  hear  what  others  thought.  Upon 
that,  I  was  allowed  to  go  on.  I  said  my  say. 
From  beginning  to  end,  General  Meade  listened 
with  an  impassive  face.  He  did  not  interrupt. 
He  never  asked  a  question.     He  never  made  a 


i6o  Anglo-American  Memories 

comment.  When  I  had  finished  I  had  not  the 
least  notion  what  impression  my  narrative  had 
made  on  him;  nor  whether  it  had  made  any  im- 
pression. He  was  a  model  of  military  discretion. 
Then  we  talked  a  little  about  other  things.  I 
said  good-bye,  rode  away,  and  never  again  saw 
General  Meade.  But  Gettysburg  was  the  vin- 
dication of  my  friends'  judgment. 

Thinking  I  had  done  all  I  could,  I  said  good-bye 
to  General  Hooker,  who  asked  no  questions,  went 
back  to  New  York,  made  a  full  oral  report  to  Mr. 
Gay,  and  asked  him  whether  I  was  to  write  a 
statement  for  publication.  He  considered  a  while, 
then  said : 

"No,  it  is  a  case  where  the  truth  can  do  only 
harm.  It  is  not  for  the  public  interest  that  the 
public  should  know  the  army  is  demoralized,  or 
know  that  Hooker  must  go,  or  know  that  no  suc- 
cessor to  him  can  yet  be  named.  Write  an  editorial, 
keep  to  generalities,  and  forget  most  of  what  you 
have  told  me. " 

I  obeyed  orders.  But  the  orders  were  given 
forty-odd  years  ago.  Such  interest  as  the  matter 
has  is  now  historical,  and  so,  for  the  first  time, 
I  make  public  a  part,  and  only  a  part,  of  what  I 
learned  in  that  month  of  May,  1863,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Rappahannock. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  NEW  YORK  DRAFT  RIOTS  IN   1 863 — NOTES  ON 
JOURNALISM 

ONE  more  battle  I  saw,  known  as  the  Draft 
Riots  of  1863.  I  arrived  in  New  York  on 
the  Monday  evening,  and  journeyed  south  through 
the  city  by  the  Hght  of  the  Roman  CathoHc  Orphan 
Asylum  in  flames;  a  stray  negro  or  two  hanging 
to  a  lamp-post  here  and  there.  This  was  the  flank 
movement  of  the  Rebellion;  an  attempt  not  only 
to  prevent  the  enforcement  of  the  draft,  which 
President  Lincoln  had  too  long  delayed,  but  to 
compel  the  Unionist  forces  to  return  northward 
for  the  defence  of  their  homes.  A  mad  scheme, 
yet  for  near  four  days  New  York  was  in  possession 
of  the  mob.  I  never  understood  why,  since  a 
couple  of  good  regiments  would  at  any  moment 
have  restored  order,  as  the  event  showed.  For 
want  of  them  New  York  had  to  defend  itself,  and 
did  it  rather  clumsily,  enduring  needless  disasters 
and  losses  both  of  property  and  life. 

The  Tribune  office  was  marked  for  destruction 
but  was  armed  and  garrisoned  and  only  once  did 
the  mob  effect  an  entrance.      Then  they  swept 

into  the  counting-house  on  the  ground  floor  and 
II  161 


1 62  Anglo-American  Memories 

made  a  bonfire  of  such  papers  as  they  found. 
For  a  moment  there  was  danger,  but  the  poHce 
came  up  from  the  Spruce  Street  station,  the  rioters 
fled  and  the  fire  was  put  out.  Upstairs  in  the 
editorial  rooms  we  knew  nothing  about  it  till  it 
was  all  over.  Afterward  a  better  watch  was  kept. 
Friends  of  The  Tribune  volunteered,  and  there  was 
no  lack  of  men ;  nor  were  the  police  again  careless. 

Another  rush  was  stopped  by  the  police  in  the 
square.  As  I  sat  at  my  window  looking  on  the 
City  Hall  I  saw  this  Rebel  effort.  But  the  police 
broke  the  solid  mass  of  rioters  as  cleverly  as  it 
could  have  been  done  in  Paris,  where  such  matters 
are  understood  better  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  Once  scattered,  these  ruffians  became  easy 
victims.  The  police  did  not  spare  them.  I  not 
only  saw,  but  heard.  I  heard  the  tap,  tap,  of  the 
police  clubs  on  the  heads  of  the  fugitives.  At  each 
tap  a  man  went  down ;  and  he  did  not  always  get 
up  again.     The  street  was  strewn  with  the  slain. 

While  these  incidents  were  occturing  an  effort 
was  made  to  keep  Mr.  Greeley  away  from  the  office; 
partly  because  he  was  a  man  of  peace,  and  we 
thought  scenes  of  violence  would  be  unpleasant 
to  him;  partly  because  he  was  in  danger  both  in 
the  office  and  as  he  came  and  went.  But  he  would 
listen  to  no  appeal.  The  post  of  danger  was  the 
post  of  duty,  and  he  stood  by  the  ship.  Mr. 
Greeley's  passion  for  peace  sometimes  carried  him 
far  but  never  showed  itself  in  an  ignoble  regard 
for  his  personal  safety. 

Mr.   Sydney   Howard   Gay's   successor  in  the 


Notes  on  Journalism  163 

managing  editorship  of  The  Tribune  was  Mr. 
John  Russell  Young,  who  brought  with  him  a  new 
life  and  freshness,  and  something  not  very  far 
removed  from  a  genius  for  journalism:  if  in  the 
profession  of  journalism  there  be  room  for  genius. 
There  is  room,  at  any  rate,  for  originality  and  for 
bird's-eye  views  of  things,  and  for  an  outlook 
upon  the  world  which  leaves  no  important  point 
uncovered.  There  is  room  for  coiu-age  and  for 
quickness  of  perception  and  for  an  intuitive  know- 
ledge of  what  is  news  and  what  is  not.  All  these 
qualities  Mr.  Young  had.  That  the  end  of  his 
relation  with  The  Tribune  was  less  happy  than  the 
beginning  offers  no  reason,  to  my  mind,  for  denying 
him  the  tribute  which  is  his  due. 

It  seems  hard  to  believe  that  in  1866,  in  the 
early  summer,  the  first  news  of  the  Austro-Prus- 
sian  war  came  to  us  in  New  York  by  ship.  But 
so  it  was.  Mr.  Young  walked  into  my  room  one 
morning  with  a  slip  of  paper  in  his  hand  from  the 
news  bureau  at,  I  think,  Quarantine,  announcing 
the  Prussian  declaration  of  war,  June  i8th,  and 
the  advance  of  the  Prussian  forces.  "I  should 
like  you  to  take  the  first  steamer  to  Europe," 
remarked  Mr.  Young,  and  walked  out  again. 
It  was  a  Monday.  The  next  steamer  was  the 
Cunarder  China,  from  Boston  to  Liverpool  via 
Queenstown,  on  the  Wednesday.  I  sailed  accord- 
ingly, and  on  reaching  Queenstown  was  met  by  a 
telegram  announcing  the  Austrian  defeat  atSadowa, 
or,  as  the  Prussians  prefer  to  call  it,  Koniggratz, 
July  3rd.     The  war  was  over.     There  were  other 


164  Anglo-American  Memories 

military  operations,  but  an  armistice  was  agreed 
to  July  22nd,  and  the  preliminaries  of  peace  were 
signed  at  Nikolsburg,  July  26th. 

On  the  following  day,  July  27th,  1866,  the  laying 
of  the  new  Atlantic  cable,  the  first  by  which  mes- 
sages from  the  public  were  transmitted,  was  suc- 
cessfully completed  by  the  Great  Eastern,  and  on 
the  28th  a  friendly  message  from  the  Queen  was 
sent  to  the  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
President  was  Mr.  Andrew  Johnson,  and  it  took 
him  two  days  to  reply.  It  would  have  made  a 
difference  to  us  in  America  if  the  war  news  of  May 
and  June  could  have  reached  us  by  cable.  Even 
such  grave  events  as  Austria's  demand  for  the 
demobilization  of  the  Prussian  Army,  so  far 
back  as  April,  and  the  proceedings  in  the  Federal 
Diet  at  Frankfort  in  June,  made  no  great  impres- 
sion on  American  opinion.  I  suppose  we  were 
already  in  that  state  of  patriotic  isolation  when 
events  in  Europe  seemed  to  us  like  events  in  an 
ancient  world.  The  Austro-Prussian  conflict  was 
not  much  more  to  masses  of  Americans  than 
the  Peloponnesian  War.  Nor,  in  truth,  did  news 
from  abroad  by  mail  ever  present  itself  with  the 
suddenness  and  authority  it  derived  from  the 
cable.  It  came  by  mail  in  masses.  It  came  by 
cable  with  the  peremptory  brevity  which  arrested 
attention.  The  home  telegraph  was  diffuse.  It 
was  the  cable  which  first  taught  us  to  condense. 
A  dispatch  from  London  was  not,  in  the  be- 
ginning, much  more  than  a  flash  of  lightning; 
and  went  into  print   as   it   came,  without  being 


Notes  on  Journalism  165 

"written  up";  and  was  ten  times  the  more 
effective. 

I  had  gone  on  from  London  to  BerHn,  and  it 
was  in  BerHn  that  the  news  came  of  a  break  m 
the  peace  negotiations  and  the  sudden  arrest  of 
the  homeward  march  of  the  Prussian  troops  which 
had  begun  August  ist.  I  sent  a  dispatch  to  The 
Tribune  announcing  this,  and  hinting  at  the  re- 
newal of  hostihties  as  a  possible  consequence.  The 
news  came  from  a  source  which  was  a  guarantee 
of  its  truth;  and  true  it  was.  But  the  diplomatic 
difficulty  was  soon  adjusted  and  again  the  Prus- 
sian columns  flowed  steadily  northward.  This 
message,  which  for  the  moment  was  sufficiently 
startling,  was,  I  think,  the  first  news  dispatch 
which  went  by  cable.  It  ran  to  near  one  hundred 
words,  and  the  cost  of  it  was  just  short  of  ^100, 
or  $500.  The  rate  from  London  to  New  York 
was  then  twenty  shillings  a  word.  We  wasted  no 
words  at  that  price. 

Mr.  Weaver  was  then  manager  of  the  Anglo- 
American  Telegraph  Company,  a  man  who  thought 
it  good  policy  to  coerce  the  public.  He  under- 
stood much  about  cable  business;  not  much  about 
human  nature.  He  considered  himself,  and  for 
the  time  being  he  was,  at  the  head  of  a  monopoly. 
People  who  desired  to  send  messages  by  cable  to 
America  must  do  so  upon  his  terms  or  not  at  all. 
It  never  seemed  to  occur  to  him  that  there  might 
be  such  a  thing  as  a  prohibitory  rate,  or  that  a 
business  could  not  be  developed  to  the  greatest 
advantage  by  driving  away  customers.     He  was 


i66  Anglo-American  Memories 

quite  happy  if  he  could  wring  an  extra  sovereign 
from  the  sender.  He  thought  it  a  good  stroke 
to  compel  each  sender  of  a  message  to  add  the 
word  "London"  to  his  signature.  It  was 
another  twenty  shillings  in  the  treasury  of  the 
company. 

Mr.  Weaver  enacted  many  vexatious  restrictive 
lav/s  the  discredit  of  which  fell  in  great  measure 
upon  Mr.  Cyrus  Field  and  other  directors  of  the 
Anglo-American  Telegraph  Company.  It  was  Mr. 
Weaver's  business  to  make  rules.  It  was  the 
business  of  the  public  to  obey  them.  At  that 
time  there  was  between  the  public  and  the  Anglo- 
American  company  no  direct  intercourse.  We 
were  obliged  to  hand  in  our  messages  over  the 
counter  of  one  of  the  two  inland  telegraph  com- 
panies, which  between  them  had  a  monopoly; 
the  British  and  Magnetic  and  the  Electric.  Mr. 
Weaver  sat  in  solitary  state  in  Telegraph  Street. 
You  approached  his  office  as  you  would  approach 
a  shrine;  a  temple  of  some  far-off  deity.  During 
the  next  few  years  I  had  often  to  discuss  matters 
with  Mr.  Weaver,  whose  regulations  embarrassed 
and  delayed  Press  messages.  He  w^as  opposed  to 
all  concessions  to  the  Press.  He  framed  a  code 
under  which  Press  messages  at  a  reduced  rate  were 
dealt  with  as  he  chose.  He  would  give  us  no 
assurance  as  to  when  he  would  begin  or  when 
complete  the  transmission  of  such  messages.  He 
would  interrupt  the  transmission  of  them  in  a 
purely  arbitrary  way,  so  that  the  first  half 
of  a    message  might  reach   New  York  for  next 


Notes  on  Journalism  167 

morning's  paper  and  the  last   half   for   the   day 
after. 

At  last  there  came  a  crisis.  I  had  filed  an 
account  of  the  Oxford-Harvard  foiir-oared  race 
from  Putney  to  Mortlake,  a  column  and  a  half 
long,  in  good  time  for  next  day's  Tribune.  It 
did  not  appear  till  the  day  following.  I  had  gone 
with  it  myself  to  the  City,  and  handed  in  my 
dispatch  over  the  counter  of  the  British  and  Mag- 
netic office  in  Threadneedle  Street.  The  office  of 
the  Anglo-American  was  but  two  minutes  distant. 
My  inquiries  about  the  delay  were  met  with  civil 
evasions.  The  Anglo-  people  said  they  sent  on 
the  dispatch  as  soon  as  they  got  it.  The  British 
and  Magnetic  people  said  it  had  been  forwarded 
to  the  Anglo-  "in  the  ordinary  course  of  business. " 
Under  that  specious  phrase  lurked  the  mischief. 
It  came  out  after  much  pressure  that,  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  business  and  by  a  rule  of  the  Mag- 
netic Company,  every  dispatch  for  the  cable  must 
be  copied  before  it  was  sent  on  to  the  Anglo-. 
The  staff  in  attendance  when  I  committed  my 
message  to  the  Magnetic  consisted  of  a  boy  at 
the  counter.  It  was  his  duty  to  copy  the  dispatch 
when  not  otherwise  engaged.  He  completed  his 
copy  early  the  next  morning.  This  was  finall37" 
admitted.  I  then  saw  Mr.  Weaver  and  put  all  I 
had  to  say  into  two  sentences.  First,  the  delayed 
dispatch  would  not  be  paid  for,  since  it  was  the 
Anglo-  which  made  itself  responsible  for  the  delay 
by  refusing  to  receive  the  message  direct  from  the 
sender.     Second,   unless  this  rule  was  abolished 


1 68  Anglo-American  Memories 

I  would  notify  The  Tribune  that  it  was  useless 
to  forward  messages  from  London,  and  advise  the 
editor  to  direct  their  discontinuance. 

Then  came  a  curious  thing.  Mr.  Weaver 
having  reflected  on  this  ultimatum  for  some  thirty 
seconds,  said: 

"Mr.  Smalley,  I  will  agree  to  your  proposal  on 
one  condition — that  you  tell  nobody  you  are 
allowed  to  hand  in  your  messages  to  us.  We  do 
not  intend  to  alter  our  rule.  We  make  an  excep- 
tion in  your  case." 

I  do  not  suppose  Mr.  Weaver  was  aware  that 
he  was  giving  me  a  great  advantage  or  that  he 
meant  to  give  it.  But,  although  the  copying 
regulation  of  the  Magnetic  was  abolished,  direct 
access  to  the  Anglo-  was  a  great  security  and  a 
great  saving  of  precious  time.  It  was  to  mean  in 
the  following  year  of  1870  that  dispatches  could  be 
sent  through  to  New  York  as  filed,  and  in  time  for 
the  regular  morning  issue,  which  otherwise  would 
have  arrived,  in  whole  or  in  part,  late.  It  was 
one  among  several  causes  to  which  was  due  the 
success  of  The  Tribune  in  the  early  months  of  the 
Franco-German  War.  The  fact  did  not  become 
known  in  the  world  of  journalism  till  some  time 
in  the  late  autumn  of  1870.  In  February,  1870, 
the  British  Government  had  taken  over  the  inland 
telegraphs,  and  with  them  the  duty  of  receiving 
transatlantic  dispatches.  The  Government  could 
have  enforced  the  old  rule  had  it  chosen,  but  it  did 
not  choose.  The  executive  officer  of  the  Post 
Office  was  Mr.  Scudamore,  secretary  to  the  Post- 


Notes  on  Journalism  169 

master-General,  who  had  no  good- will  to  the 
Press  and  none  to  me.  Probably  he  knew  nothing 
about  the  matter.  But  since  1870  the  cable  offices 
have  all  been  thrown  open,  or  special  offices  opened 
for  the  receipt  of  messages,  and  you  may  now  file 
cable  messages  for  America  in  any  Post  Office  or 
any  cable  office.  The  English  postal  telegraph 
service  is  wonderfully  good — far  better  than  any 
telegraph  service  in  America — ^but  I  should  never 
file  a  Press  message  in  a  postal  office  if  within 
reach  of  a  cable  office. 

All  this  is  highly  technical  and  I  suppose  of  no 
interest  to  anybody  but  journalists  and  telegraph 
managers.  But  there  are  other  experiences  which 
I  hope  may  be  foimd  worth  reading  by  a  less  select 
audience. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HOW    THE    PRUSSIANS    AFTER   SADOWA  CAME  HOME 
TO    BERLIN 

'T'HERE  is  much  more  to  say  on  this  subject 
*  of  cabling  which  I  touched  on,  perhaps  pre- 
matiu-ely,  in  the  last  chapter,  but  it  can  wait  till 
certain  incidents  in  Berlin  have  been  described. 
Ever  memorable  to  me  was  this  visit  to  Berlin 
in  1866,  and  for  two  things.  I  saw  something  of 
the  two  greatest  forces  in  Prussia,  or  two  of  the 
three  greatest:  the  Prussian  army  and  Count 
Bismarck.  The  third,  whom  I  saw,  but  only  saw, 
was  the  King ;  whom  his  grandson  has  since  rechris- 
tened  William  the  Great.  The  Seven  Weeks' 
War  was  just  over.  There  w^ere  Generals  of  the 
army  who  expected  to  enter  Vienna  in  triumph, 
as,  four  and  a  half  years  later,  the  German  armies 
were  to  enter  Paris.  But  Count  Bismarck  had 
vetoed  this  project ;  by  no  means  desiring  to  leave 
an  indelible  scar  of  defeat  and  humiliation  on  a 
kindred  German  capital.  He  wished,  and  the 
King  wished,  that  in  the  future,  and  in  the  near 
future,  Berlin  and  Vienna  should  be  friends.  In 
the  interest  of  that  wise  policy  the  purely  military 
ambitions  of  these  Generals,  the  Red  Prince  per- 
haps among  them,  who  were  soldiers  and  nothing 

170 


After  Sadowa  171 

else,  were  repressed.  A  consolation  was  allowed 
them  in  the  shape  of  a  triumphal  re-entry  into 
Berlin. 

So  on  the  20th  and  21st  of  September  the  gar- 
rison of  Berlin  and  Potsdam,  fifty  thousand  strong, 
but  dividing  their  strength  between  the  two  days, 
marched  through  the  Brandenburger  Gate,  and 
up  the  Unter  den  Linden  to  the  Opera  Platz.  By 
good  luck  I  had  rooms  in  the  Hotel  du  Nord,  then 
the  best  hotel  in  Berlin,  midway  in  the  great 
avenue  of  Berlin;  and  being  on  the  second  floor  I 
could  look  well  over  the  trees  and  along  almost  the 
whole  stretch  of  this  fine  street,  a  hundred  yards 
wide. 

It  was  such  a  spectacle  as  presents  itself  but 
seldom  to  the  human  eye,  German  or  other.  All 
things  considered,  it  cannot  often  have  been 
surpassed.  The  whole  world  was  looking  on. 
For  here  was  Prussia,  but  three  months  ago  a 
second-class  European  Power,  which  had  suddenly 
stepped  into  the  front  rank.  So  dazzling  was  her 
rise  that  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  looking  out  of 
the  Tuileries  windows  upon  a  transformed  Central 
Europe,  was  already  demanding  ''compensation" 
for  Sadowa,  and  demanding  vainly.  The  leader- 
ship of  Germany  had  passed  in  a  night  from  Austria 
to  Prussia.  The  Germanic  Confederation  had 
been  dissolved  and  the  North  German  Confedera- 
tion, with  Prussia  the  all-powerful  head  of  it,  had 
come  into  existence.  With  the  refusal  of  Count 
Bismarck  to  listen  to  the  demands  of  Napoleon, 
Prussia  stood  out  in  Central  Europe  as  the  German 


172  Anglo-American  Memories 


State  which  at  last  was  to  resist  all  attempts  from 
beyond  the  Rhine  to  impose  the  will  of  a  French 
ruler  upon  the  German  people.  It  was  a  Declara- 
tion of  Independence;  and  of  something  more  than 
independence. 

When  the  head  of  that  great  colimin  of  victorious 
troops  emerged  from  the  great  Gate,  what  Berlin 
saw  was  the  instrument  by  which  these  vast 
changes  had  been  brought  about.  There  were 
men  of  prophetic  mind  who  saw  in  it  the  instru- 
ment of  greater  changes  yet  to  be.  But  sufficient 
for  the  day  was  the  glory  thereof.  All  Berlin  was 
in  the  streets ;  or  in  this  one  street ;  or  in  the  win- 
dows and  on  the  housetops  of  the  Unter  den  Linden. 
As  they  cheered  I  did  not  think  the  volume  of 
sound  comparable  to  what  one  hears  in  London  on 
great  days  of  public  rejoicing.  There  was  re- 
joicing, of  course,  and  there  was  enthusiasm,  but 
it  was  of  the  grave  German  kind;  none  the  less 
deep  for  being  less  resonant.  I  cannot  remember 
being  much  impressed  by  these  demonstrations, 
nor  by  the  flags  and  other  decorations.  The 
Prussian  flag,  with  its  black  and  red,  was  a  less 
cheerful  piece  of  bunting  than  the  Tricolour  or  the 
Union  Jack.  The  Germans  have,  nevertheless, 
ideas  of  ornament  and  of  art  values;  perhaps  mid- 
way between  the  French,  who  are  supreme  in  such 
matters,  and  the  English,  who  have  no  ideas  at  all 
except  to  hang  out  all  the  flags  they  possess  and 
trust  to  luck  for  harmony  and  effect.  None  the 
less  was  the  Unter  den  Linden  garlanded  with 
banners,  and  the  better  houses  or  larger  buildings 


After  Sadowa  173 

were  glowing  with  colour  and  contrasts.  But  the 
military  display  was  the  important  thing,  and  it 
was  magnificent. 

The  King  came  first,  riding  a  little  in  front  of 
his  headquarters  staff  and  of  the  Generals  who 
were  in  his  suite.  Whether  he  might  be  called 
William  the  Great  or  not,  he  was  on  that  day  a 
kingly  figure.  The  officers  with  him  numbered,  I 
should  think,  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty,  mostly 
well  mounted,  in  uniforms  which,  whatever  they 
might  be  singly,  were  splendid  in  the  mass.  They 
were  perhaps  too  splendid.  One  would  have 
liked  to  see  these  men  in  the  clothes  in  which  they 
had  marched  and  fought;  with  the  stains  of  war 
upon  them.  But  that,  I  suppose,  would  have 
been  abhorrent  to  the  German  mind,  and  especially 
to  the  German  military  mind,  with  its  deep  devo- 
tion to  etiquette  and  its  worship  of  routine  and 
all  forms  of  military  technique.  But  the  echoes 
of  Austrian  battlefields  had  not  yet  sunk  into 
silence,  and  we  knew  well  enough  that  these  were 
no  holiday  warriors. 

They  rode  slowly.  When  the  King  and  his 
staff  had  passed  there  came  a  surprise.  The 
procession  seemed  for  one  moment  to  have  come 
to  an  end.  There  was  an  open  space  of  perhaps 
fifty  yards.  In  the  centre  of  it  rode  three  men. 
The  three  were:  Von  Roon,  Minister  of  War; 
Moltke;  and  between  them  Bismarck,  in  a  white 
uniform  as  Major  of  Cuirassiers.  It  was  when 
they  came  into  view  that  the  cheering  rose  highest. 
The  King  was  popular  and  the  greeting  of  his 


174  Anglo-American  Memories 

people  had  been  cordial.  But  the  three  men  be- 
hind him  were  the  real  heroes.  Von  Roon  had 
organized  the  forces  of  Prussia;  Moltke  had  guided 
them  to  victory;  Bismarck  had  planned  and 
brought  on  the  war.  The  Camot  of  Prussia;  the 
soldier  of  all  soldiers  of  Prussia  next  after  the 
great  Frederick;  the  brain  and  will  and  directing 
force  of  Prussia,  these  three;  and  in  all  Europe 
no  other  three  comparable  to  them,  singly  or 
together. 

So  here  they  rode,  these  Three  by  themselves; 
apart,  as  if  all  that  had  gone  before  and  all  that 
was  to  come  after  were  there  in  homage  to  them. 
The  King  and  his  headquarters  staff  were  but  the 
advance-guard  to  these  Three.  The  five-and- 
twenty  thousand  troops  who  followed  were  but 
their  rear-guard.  These  servants  and  priceless  pos- 
sessions of  the  State  were  encompassed  about  by  all 
that  was  brilliant  and  all  that  was  useful  in  the 
State,  themselves  excepted.  They  bore  themselves 
as  befitted  their  services  and  their  places,  with  a 
dignity,  a  serene  disregard  of  everything  but  their 
duty,  which  belong  to  real  greatness.  Berlin 
hailed  them  with  cheers  of  a  kind  which  had  been 
given  to  no  other.  I  do  not  know  that  any  of 
the  three  was  precisely  what  might  be  called 
popular.  Popularity  was  not  what  Von  Roon 
or  Moltke  or  Bismarck  had  sought.  But  Berlin 
knew,  and  Prussia  knew,  that  but  for  these  three 
there  would  have  been  no  day  of  victory  for  the 
Fatherland. 

The  troops  came  past  in  the  formation  known 


After  Sadowa  175 

as  company  front,  and  as  the  Prussian  companies 
were  a  hundred  strong  or  more,  the  effect  was 
admirable.  Berlin  was  thronged  with  soldiers  for 
days  after  this,  and  the  individual  Prussian  soldier 
was  not  then  a  very  imposing  object.  He  was 
well  set  up,  but  he  and  his  uniform  were  not  always 
on  good  terms;  in  short,  he  was  too  often  slovenly 
or  slouching.  He  had,  moreover,  a  stiffness  of 
bearing  which  reminded  you  of  Heine's  bitter 
account  of  him  in  earlier  days;  that  "he  looked 
as  if  he  had  swallowed  the  ramrod  with  which  he 
had  been  thrashed."  But  in  the  mass  you  saw 
nothing  slovenly,  and  the  stiffness  perhaps  helped 
his  officers  to  dress  that  company  front  in  a  straight 
line  across  the  broad  street.  The  front  was,  in 
fact,  perfection,  and  so  was  the  marching,  and  as 
these  bodies  of  drilled  men  moved  up  the  Linden 
they  looked  like  what  they  had  proved  themselves, 
irresistible.  They  swept  on  with  a  movement  as 
of  some  great  natural  force.  Regiment  after  regi- 
ment swung  past.  There  was  never  a  break  or 
halt.  The  machine  was  in  its  best  working  order. 
The  men  carried  their  heads  high,  crowned  with 
victory.  And  so  the  tide  of  war  poured  through 
this  peaceful  street. 

The  Prussian  uniform  was  not  a  brilliant  one. 
In  point  of  mere  costume  these  troops  were  not 
comparable  to  many  others.  The  Austrians  were 
far  more  smartly  dressed;  and  the  English,  and 
the  French.  But  this  blue  and  red  looked  work- 
manlike, while  as  for  ornament — well,  what  orna- 
ment was  needed  beyond  the  word  Sadowa,  which 


176  Anglo-American  Memories 

might  have  been,  but  was  not,  embroidered  on 
the  collars  of  their  tunics?  You  saw  also  that 
this  was  a  citizen  army:  the  German  people  were 
in  these  ranks,  as  the  Prussian  people.  The  words 
have  since  become  almost  convertible,  though  there 
are  millions  of  Germans  who  will  not  agree  to  that. 

The  regimental  officers  were  well  enough  mount- 
ed and,  so  far  as  one  could  judge  from  a  parade 
like  this,  were  good  horsemen.  They  sat  well 
down  in  their  saddles.  A  good  seat  and  good 
hands  go  together,  or  ought  to  go  together,  but 
do  not  always,  and  the  hands  seemed  heavy  if  a 
horse  turned  restive.  But  another  thing  became 
clear  as  you  looked.  The  officers  were  of  the 
elect.  The  Prussian  aristocracy  was  in  the  saddle. 
There  has  never  been  a  time  since  the  Great 
Elector  of  Brandenburg  when  it  was  not  in  the 
saddle,  actually  and  figuratively.  To  adopt  Bis- 
marck's phrase  at  a  much  later  day,  in  a  great 
speech  at  Jena,  this  country  of  Prussia  has  never 
been  ruled  from  below.  It  was  not  in  1866.  Nor 
have  the  Junkers  and  the  nobility  of  Prussia  ever 
failed  to  pay  with  their  persons  when  the  need  arose. 
In  that  murderous  cavalry  charge  at  Mars-la-Tour, 
the  ranks  were  crowded  with  the  sons  of  Princes, 
and  Dukes,  and  Counts,  and  all  the  rest;  they 
rode,  no  small  part  of  them,  to  death,  and  knew 
they  were  riding  to  death,  but  no  thought  of  rank 
or  riches  stayed  them,  nor  did  any  one  falter. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  think  of  these  later  things 
as  the  memories  of  these  September  days  in  1866 
come  back.     I  looked  on  then  at  the  beginnings 


After  Sadowa  177 

of  what  was  foreordained  to  happen.  This  was 
the  army,  these  were  the  very  men  who  were  to 
close  about  Sedan  in  that  other  September  of  1870. 
Long  after  that  I  was  to  see  them  again  in  the 
Opera  Platz  and  Unter  den  Linden  when  the  King 
who  now  rides  with  his  grave  gallantry  of  bearing 
at  their  head  was  to  be  buried,  on  one  of  the  coldest 
and  perhaps  the  blackest  day  Berlin  ever  saw. 
The  splendour  had  departed.  The  triumph  of  1 866 
had  given  way  to  mourning  and  gloom.  And  on 
the  architrave  of  the  Brandenburg  Thor,  draped 
and  shrouded,  like  all  Berlin,  in  black,  stood  out 
in  white  letters  the  last  greeting  of  Berlin  to  its 
old-time  King,  "Vale,  Senex  Imperator. " 


CHAPTER  XX 

A  TALK  WITH  COUNT  BISMARCK  IN  1 866 


D  Y  one  of  those  pieces  of  good  fortune  which 
-■— '  descend  only  upon  the  undeserving,  I  came 
to  know  Count  Bismarck  before  I  left  Berlin.  I 
was  advised  to  present  my  letter  at  the  Landtag, 
and  as  the  Coimt  was  said  to  be  in  the  House,  I 
sent  it  in.  He  came  out  to  the  ante-chamber  where 
I  was  waiting,  and  there  for  the  first  time  I  looked 
into  the  pale  blue  eyes  whence  had  flashed  the 
lightnings  that  had  riven  the  power  of  Austria 
on  the  field  of  Sadowa.  Now  they  had  a  kindly 
and  welcoming  look  in  them.  But,  said  Coimt 
Bismarck: 

"I  have  not  a  moment.  A  debate  is  on,  and  I 
am  to  speak  at  once.  Come  to  my  house  in  the 
Wilhelmstrasse  at  half -past  ten  to-night,  and  we 
can  have  a  talk.  Meantime  you  might  like  to 
hear  the  debate." 

And  he  called  to  an  official  to  take  me  into  the 

Chamber,  shook  hands  again,  and  away  he  went. 

I  heard  his  speech,  marvelled  at  the  sight  of  a 

Parliamentary    chief    in    full    military    uniform; 

marvelled  at  the  tone  of  authority,  which  also  was 

178 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  179 

military;  marvelled  again  at  the  brevity  and 
directness  of  the  orator  who  took  no  thought  of 
rhetoric  and  hardly  cared  to  convince,  but  rather 
to  command.  It  was  the  oratory  of  the  master 
of  many  legends.  True,  the  four  years'  conflict 
between  him  and  the  Prussian  Parliament  was 
over,  but  true  also  that  on  both  Parliament  and 
Minister  that  conflict  had  left  a  mark.  In  his 
voice  there  was  still  a  challenge,  and  in  the  silence 
of  the  Chamber  still  something  sullen.  He  had 
won.  They  had  lost  in  a  struggle  upon  which, 
as  Herr  Loewe  told  me,  they  ought  never  to  have 
entered ;  would  never  have  entered  had  they  known. 
Loewe  and  his  party  of  so-called  Liberals  confessed 
themselves  not  only  beaten  but  wholly  in  the 
wrong. 

At  half-past  ten  I  rang  at  the  outer  door — 
which  was  more  like  a  gate — of  the  palace  in  the 
Wilhelmstrasse.  It  was  opened  by  a  soldier  who 
asked  my  name,  and  when  he  heard  it  told  me 
I  was  expected  and  asked  me  to  follow  him.  I 
was  taken  upstairs  to  a  large  empty  room  on  the 
first  floor.  In  a  moment  out  came  Count  Bis- 
marck's famous  adlatus,  Herr  Lothar  Biicher. 
The  Count  was  engaged  with  the  Minister  of  War, 
but  if  I  could  wait  would  see  me  presently.  I 
waited  ten  minutes.  Again  the  door  to  the  left 
opened,  and  forth  came  Von  Roon,  the  mighty 
organizer  of  war,  himself  of  course  a  soldier  since 
in  Prussia  everybody  who  counted  in  affairs  of 
State  was  a  soldier,  and  still  is.  You  had  need 
to  visit  Berlin  in  those  warlike  days  to  understand 


i8o  Ancrlo-American  Memories 


'fe 


what  was  meant  by  the  phrase  that  Prussia  was  a 
camp.  Then  you  had  need  to  visit  it  again  in 
time  of  peace  to  understand  that  whether  in  peace 
or  war  Prussia  was  still  a  camp,  and  as  much  in 
peace  as  in  war.  What  it  is  now  I  cannot  say. 
I  have  not  been  in  Berlin  these  last  fifteen  years, 
but  between  1866  and  1893  I  was  there  many  times, 
and  every  time  it  was  a  camp.  The  garrison  of 
Berlin  and  Potsdam  was  never,  I  think,  less  than 
40,000  men.  The  streets  of  Berlin  were  always 
thronged  with  officers,  and  on  the  broad  side- 
walks of  the  Unter  den  Linden  or  the  Friedrich- 
strasse  there  was  scarce  room  for  anybody  else. 
The  youngest  lieutenant  wanted  all  of  it  to  him- 
self. To  each  other  these  officers  were  civility 
itself  but  the  civilian  had  no  rights  they  were 
bound  to  respect. 

I  had  already  seen  something  of  this  all-per- 
vading military  spirit  and  military  supremacy, 
and  sat  reflecting  on  it  in  this  great  salon  where 
I  waited  for  Count  Bismarck  to  be  at  leisure. 
When  Herr  von  Roon  came  out  he  recognized  me, 
I  suppose,  as  a  stranger,  and,  civilian  though  I 
was,  gave  me  the  greeting  he  thought  due  to 
Count  Bismarck's  guest,  which  I  returned.  There 
was  almost  a  halt  as  he  strode  past;  his  face  was 
turned  to  me,  and  I  could  read  in  it  the  stern 
record  of  a  long  conflict;  of  vast  responsibilities 
and  years  of  unceasing  toil;  a  rugged  face  enough 
but  the  light  of  victory  in  his  eye.  He,  too,  had 
fought  and  won.  Curiously  enough,  among  the 
men  I  met  at  that  time  in  Berlin,  the  man  who, 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  i8i 

Bismarck  excepted,  seemed  to  have  most  of 
the  statesman  in  him,  with  the  statesman's 
civic  virtues  and  traits,  was  this  Minister  of  War. 
Not  because  he  was  Minister  in  the  sense  in 
which  an  EngHsh  Secretary  of  State  for  War  is 
Minister.  The  EngHsh  War  Minister  is  never  a 
soldier;  he  is  a  Parliamentary  chief,  and  his 
authority  over  the  army  denotes  the  supremacy 
of  Parliament  over  the  whole  military  hierarchy 
from  commander-in-chief  down  to  the  drummer 
boy. 

But  of  Parliamentary  supremacy  there  had 
been  for  these  last  four  years  in  Prussia  none 
whatever.  The  Minister  of  War  was  not  respon- 
sible to  Parliament;  he  never  has  been;  he  is  not 
now.  He  was  then  responsible  to  the  King  of 
Prussia,  as  he  is  now  to  the  German  Emperor. 
When,  in  May,  1863,  the  Chamber  protested  to 
the  King  that  the  attitude  of  the  Ministry  to 
Parliament  was  arbitrary  and  unconstitutional 
(as  it  was),  the  King  made  answer  that  the  Min- 
istry possessed  his  confidence,  and  sent  the  Parlia- 
ment about  its  business.  That  is,  he  prorogued 
Parliament,  announced  that  he  would  govern  for 
the  present  without  a  Parliament;  and  as  matters 
did  not  mend  and  the  Chamber  again  in  December 
refused  to  vote  a  war  budget,  the  King  dissolved 
it.  Parliamentary  government  existed  at  that 
time  in  Prussia  under  the  constitution,  but  in 
name  only. 

These  reflections  were  cut  short  by  the  reopen- 
ing  of  the   door,  and  Count   Bismarck   entered. 


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C3 


Still  in  uniform,  nor  did  I  ever  see  him  except  in 
uniform,  whether  in  public  or  private,  till  I  visited 
him  in  his  home  at  Friedrichsruh  in  1893,  where 
he  wore  a  black  frock-coat  and  black  trousers, 
crowned,  when  he  went  out,  by  a  soft,  broad- 
brimmed  grey  felt  hat,  quite  shapeless.  He  had, 
more  than  any  man  I  ever  met,  the  manner  of  the 
grand  seigneur,  in  which  distinction  of  bearing 
and  a  grave,  even  gentle,  courtesy  went  together. 
He  was  sorry,  he  said,  to  have  kept  me  waiting, 
"but  the  business  of  the  State,  you  know,  comes 
first,  and  though  one  crisis  is  over  another  suc- 
ceeds, and  we  know  not  yet  what  the  end  is  to  be. " 
This  I  understood  to  refer  not  to  Austria,  for  the 
Treaty  of  Prague  had  been  signed  in  August,  but 
to  France,  where  the  Emperor  was  brooding  over 
his  lost  prestige  and  lost  hold  on  Southern  Ger- 
many, and  was  meditating  demands  which  might 
compensate  him  for  the  loss  of  the  power  of  med- 
dling with  matters  which  were  none  of  his  business. 
As  he  said  this  we  walked  into  his  private  room, 
or  cabinet,  the  very  centre  of  the  spider's  web; 
a  comfortable,  plain,  workmanlike  little  room; 
a  writing-desk  the  chief  piece  of  furnittire,  large 
enough  to  fill  the  whole  of  the  further  corner;  a 
sideboard  opposite,  a  small  table  with  ash  trays, 
a  few  chairs,  and  that  was  all.  The  ciu*tains  were 
drawn;  the  room,  German  fashion,  seemed  a 
trifle  close,  and  as  if  old  Frederick  William's 
Tobacco  Parliament  had  been  held  here  all  these 
last  hundred  and  fifty  years  or  more.  There 
was  a  rug  in  the  centre  which  had  to  do  duty  for 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  183 

the  carpet  which  in  Germany,  as  elsewhere  on  the 
Continent,  never  covers  the  whole  floor. 

As  we  were  sitting  down,  the  Count  behind  his 
desk,  a  door  opened,  opposite  to  the  one  by  which 
we  had  entered,  and  there  appeared  a  lady  whom 
I  had  never  seen;  the  Countess  Bismarck.  When 
she  saw  me  she  said  to  her  husband : 

*'You  have  not  been  in  bed  for  three  nights. 
I  hope  you  don't  mean  to  sit  up  again." 

Of  course  I  rose,  saying,  "At  any  rate,  he  shall 
not  sit  up  for  me. "  But  the  Count  laughed,  came 
out  from  behind  his  desk,  took  me  by  the  shoul- 
ders, thrust  me  down  into  the  chair  again,  all  with 
an  air  of  kindly  authority  not  easy  to  describe, 
and  said: 

"Sit  where  you  are.  I  want  to  talk  to 
you." 

As  I  thought  it  over  afterward  I  supposed 
Count  Bismarck  had  some  object  in  mind  other 
than  the  pleasure  of  my  conversation.  He  knew 
that  I  was  the  representative  of  The  Tribune;  my 
letter  to  him  had  stated  that.  He  knew  what  the 
position  and  power  of  The  Tribune  were,  and 
especially  of  its  influence  with  the  Germans  in 
America.  And  it  seemed  to  me  that,  in  view  of 
the  relations  between  the  Germans  at  home  and 
the  Germans  beyond  the  seas,  he  thought  it  might 
be  worth  while  that  his  view  of  the  situation 
should  be  put  before  the  Germans  in  America, 
and  before  the  Americans  also,  in  an  authentic 
though  not  an  authoritative  way.  Count  Bis- 
marck did  not  say  that.     It  was  my  conjecture, 


1 84  i\nglo-American  Memories 

upon  which  I  acted  to  a  certain  extent  as  I  will 
explain  more  fully  by  and  by. 

Countess  Bismarck  looked  on  at  this  perform- 
ance which  she  plainly  did  not  like,  but  presently 
smiled  and  said  to  her  husband:  "Well,  if  you 
will  sit  up  you  must  have  something  to  drink," 
went  to  the  sideboard,  mixed  a  brandy  and  soda, 
took  it  to  him,  put  the  glass  to  his  lips,  and  stood 
by  him  to  see  that  he  drank  the  whole,  which  he 
did  with  no  visible  reluctance.  He  handed  the 
empty  tumbler  to  his  wife  and  thanked  her.  She 
put  her  arm  about  him,  kissed  him,  looked  at 
me  reproachfully  but  amiably,  and  vanished.  A 
truly  domestic,  truly  German,  altogether  charming 
little  scene. 

Many  years  later,  after  Count  Bismarck  had 
become  Prince  Bismarck  and  a  greater  figure  in 
Germany  than  the  world  had  seen,  I  met  Princess 
Bismarck  again  at  a  dinner  in  Homburg  given 
by  Mr.  William  Walter  Phelps,  American  Minister 
at  Berlin.  Mr.  Phelps  had  long  been  a  friend  of 
the  Bismarck  family  and  on  easy  terms  with  the 
head  of  that  family,  who  liked  and  respected  him. 
It  was  a  case  of  sympathy  between  opposites. 
No  contrast  could  be  more  complete  than  the 
contrast  between  Prince  Bismarck  and  Mr.  Phelps ; 
but  their  relations  were,  as  so  often  happens,  all 
the  more  friendly  for  that  reason.  I  was  presented 
to  the  Princess,  and  after  dinner  inquired  whether 
she  remembered  this  midnight  incident  in  the 
Wilhelmstrasse.  She  asked  me  to  describe  it,  and 
I  told  her  what  had  happened.     She  had  wholly 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck         185 

forgotten  it.  I  asked  her  if  I  might  some  day- 
narrate  the  story.  "I  don't  see  why  you  should- 
n't," she  answered.  Years  after  that  I  again  saw 
the  Princess  at  Friedrichsruh,  and  she  asked 
whether  I  had  ever  repeated  my  tale.  I  said 
no,  but  that  I  still  meant  to  avail  myself  of  her 
permission,  as  I  now  do. 

The  Princess  thought,  I  imagine,  she  would  like 
to  see  the  Prince  portrayed  in  this  intimate  way 
and  in  this  relation  to  his  wife.  Her  life  had 
always  been  lived  in  and  for  his.  She  knew  well 
what  the  world  thought ;  to  the  world  he  was  always 
the  Iron  Chancellor.  But  in  private  life  he  was 
the  affectionate  loyal  husband  to  whom  one  woman 
had  devoted  all  she  had — all  her  love,  truth,  wor- 
ship— an  adoration  which  perhaps  not  many  men 
have  deserved  or  received  from  any  woman. 

There  is  much  in  Bismarck's  Love  Letters — 
which  are  hardly  love  letters — about  his  wife,  and 
much  in  other  Bismarck  books,  notably  in  Sidney 
Whitman's  Personal  Reminiscences,  the  best  of 
them  all.  The  Princess  will  ever  live  as  an  amiable 
figure,  and  if  she  had  not  been  that  would  still 
live  as  the  wife  of  the  one  great  German  of  his 
time;  as  the  woman  who  had  known  how  to 
captivate  a  fancy  once  supposed  to  be  wayward, 
and  to  make  it  and  him  her  own.  The  quality 
which  distinguished  her  was  sweetness  of  nature, 
which  she  never  lost  during  a  life  harassed  by 
many  solicitudes  and  vexed  by  illness. 


i86  Anglo-American  Memories 


II 


The  Countess  von  Bismarck  having  departed 
out  of  the  Uttle  room,  the  King's  Minister  plunged 
at  once  into  his  subject,  which  was  nothing  less 
than  the  history  of  the  last  four  years  during 
which  he  had  ruled  over  Prussia.  Much  of  what 
he  said  I  repeated  in  The  Tribune  no  very  long 
time  after.  All  that  he  said,  or  all  that  I  could 
remember,  I  put  down  in  writing  that  night  before 
I  slept.  It  contained,  however,  so  much  that 
obviously  was  not  meant  for  print  and  could  never 
be  printed  that,  after  using  as  much  as  I  thought 
could  properly  be  published,  I  destroyed  my  manu- 
script. I  had  said  to  Count  Bismarck  as  I  left 
that  he  knew  he  had  been  talking  to  a  journalist 
and  yet  had  said  many  things  he  could  not 
wish  made  known  to  the  public.  He  laughed 
and  answered:  "Well,  it  is  your  business  to 
distinguish." 

It  is,  therefore,  still  my  business  to  distinguish. 
I  may  perhaps  say  a  little  more  than  I  could  while 
both  the  Emperor  and  the  Prince  were  alive,  but 
not  much.  For,  in  truth,  I  have  never  quite 
understood  why  confidences  cease  to  be  confidences 
because  those  who  imparted  them  or  those  whom 
they  concern  are  dead.  A  man  who  quits  this 
world  leaves  his  reputation,  if  he  has  any,  behind 
him.  Indiscretions  may  affect  his  memory  as  they 
might  have  affected  his  living  fame.  In  this  case 
they  would  exalt  Count  Bismarck's  fame;  but 
it  might  be  at  the  expense  of  others  whom  he  had 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  187 

no  desire  to  belittle.  So  I  keep  for  the  most  part 
to  generalities. 

Of  the  King  he  spoke  with  astonishing  freedom, 
yet  never  a  word  to  injure  the  sovereign  whom 
he  served.  I  will  quote  once  more  a  sentence  I 
have  repeated  before  now: 

"You  are  a  Republican,  and  you  cannot  fully 
understand  the  loyalty  I  cherish  to  a  King  to 
whose  ancestors  my  ancestors  have  been  loyal 
for  hundreds  of  years." 

Yet  it  comes  to  this — and  of  this  truth  History 
has  long  since  taken  account — that  between 
Count  Bismarck  and  his  august  master  there  was 
a  long-continuing  conflict.  If  the  King  had  won 
there  would  have  been  no  Austro-Prussian  War, 
nor  any  Franco-German  War,  nor  any  German 
Confederation,  nor  any  Germany  as  we  know 
Germany  to-day.  When,  therefore,  the  present 
German  Emperor  puts  forward  his  grandfather 
as  the  author  of  these  changes,  he  is  making  for 
his  grandfather  a  false  claim.  While  he  was  still 
Prince  William  of  Prussia  he  said : 

"Whenever  I  hear  a  great  event  in  my  grand- 
father's reign  discussed  I  never  hear  his  name 
mentioned,  but  always  Bismarck's.  When  I  come 
to  the  throne  it  is  my  name  you  will  hear  as 
the  author  of  the  policies  and  deeds  of  my 
reign. " 

William  the  Second  has  kept  that  pledge,  but 
that  is  no  reason  why  he  should  try  to  rewrite  the 
history  of  his  grandfather's  time  or  to  rob  Prince 
Bismarck  of  the  renown  which  belongs  to  him  and 


i88  Anglo-American  Memories 

which  the  world  awards  him.  Powerful  as  he  is, 
he  is  not  powerful  enough  for  that. 

This  is  a  digression,  but  it  will  serve  to  bring 
out  the  main  fact  that  there  was  a  contest  between 
the  King  and  Bismarck  in  1866,  and  that  not  the 
King  but  Bismarck  came  out  triumphant.  In 
the  long  war  with  Parliament  the  King  and  his 
Minister  were  together,  and  the  King  was  as 
loyal  to  his  Minister  as  the  Minister  was  to  the 
King.  But  when  the  critical  moment  came  it 
still  has  to  be  said  that  Bismarck's  was  the 
seeing  eye  and  the  deciding  voice,  and  his,  not  the 
King's,  was  the  directing  mind. 

Over  the  heads  of  the  Parliament  and  people 
of  Prussia,  and  against  the  wish  of  the  King,  who 
only  at  the  last  moment  and  by  one  last  argu- 
ment had  been  persuaded  to  consent,  did  Bismarck 
pursue  his  way. 

"It  was  not,"  said  Bismarck,  ''till  I  had  con- 
vinced the  King  that  his  honour  as  a  soldier  was 
involved  that  he  would  agree  to  the  war  with 
Austria.  No  political  argument  moved  him.  The 
vision  of  a  united  Germany  with  himself  at  the 
head  of  a  German  Confederation  did  not  dazzle  him. 

"  'Austria  is  my  brother,'  he  said;  'the  war 
would  be  fratricidal.  The  Emperor  and  I  are 
bound  together  by  many  ties,  by  many  interests; 
above  all  by  affection  and  by  loyalty.  I  should 
think  it  treacherous  to  attack  a  sovereign  who 
has  given  me  many  proofs  of  good-will  and  to 
whom  I  have  given  pledges.  Nothing  will  induce 
me  to  do  it. ' 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  189 

"Yet,"  continued  Bismarck,  "he  had  allowed 
me  to  take  step  after  step,  each  one  of  which  led 
inevitably  to  war.  In  the  long  conflict  with  the 
Parliament  he  was  with  me.  Only  by  his  support 
was  that  conflict  maintained  or  victory  possible. 
No  money  was  voted  for  four  years.  We  laid 
hands  on  the  public  revenues,  but  the  Government 
had  to  be  carried  on  in  part  by  money  supplied 
out  of  that  Royal  Treasure  Fund  which  for  genera- 
tions the  Kings  of  Prussia  have  hoarded  for  kingly 
purposes.  The  preparations  for  war  were  nour- 
ished from  the  same  source.  The  war  with  Den- 
mark was  paid  for  to  a  certain  extent  out  of  the 
same  royal  purse.  The  Landtag  never  assented 
to  the  Schleswig-Holstein  enterprise  nor  would 
vote  a  solitary  thaler  to  carry  it  on.  Before  that, 
when  I  became  Minister,  in  September,  1862,  my 
first  act  was  to  announce  to  the  Chamber  that 
I  proposed  to  govern  without  a  budget.  The 
Chamber  protested  against  that  as  unconstitu- 
tional, which  of  course  it  was.  Six  months  later 
the  Chamber  invited  the  King  to  dismiss  his 
Ministers.  He  replied  that  his  Ministers  had  his 
confidence,  and  a  week  later  instead  of  dismissing 
us  announced  that  he  proposed  to  govern  without 
a  Parliament. 

"All  this  time  I  was  preparing  for  war  with 
Austria  after  Denmark.  The  King  must  have 
known  what  it  all  meant,  but  he  did  not  stay  his 
hand  nor  withdraw  his  confidence  from  us.  After 
the  peace  with  Denmark  there  was  no  longer  any 
reason  for  military  preparations  except  Austria. 


190  Anglo-American  Memories 

But  the  King  still  allowed  me  to  go  on.  In  Janu- 
ary, 1865,  the  Parliament  again  rejected  the  pub- 
lic budget.  The  King  rejoined  by  seizing  on 
the  public  revenues  in  the  name  of  the  State.  The 
public  knew  nothing  of  what  I  had  in  mind.  The 
Parliament  knew  nothing.  If  it  had  been  possible 
to  take  Parliament  into  my  confidence  the  budget 
would  have  been  voted.  The  Liberals  have  ad- 
mitted that.  But  to  take  Parliament  into  my 
confidence  would  have  been  to  take  Austria  into 
my  confidence.  It  could  not  be.  It  was  necessary 
to  strike  suddenly;  to  strike  before  Austria  could 
assemble  her  reserves,  or  take  advantage  of  her 
immense  resources,  or  bring  into  line  all  the  dis- 
cordant races  of  that  great  Empire. 

"How  much  did  I  tell  the  King?  Well,  as  much 
as  was  necessary  for  the  time  being.  The  great 
struggle  with  His  Majesty  was  put  off  till  the 
moment  of  conflict  was  near;  till  it  was  necessary 
to  throw  off  the  mask.  Besides,  you  must  con- 
sider that  I  had  to  deal  not  only  with  the  King 
but  with  the  various  Court  influences  which  siir- 
rounded  him.  They  were  almost  all  hostile  to  me. 
Many  of  them  were  very  powerful  with  the  King. 
I  might  spend  six  weeks  in  coaxing  him  to  assent 
to  a  particular  measiu"e.  When  he  had  promised, 
in  would  come  some  Grand  Duchess  and  in  half 
an  hour  undo  my  six  weeks'  work. " 

I  interrupt  the  flow  of  this  speech  to  remark 
that,  long  after- this,  Prince  Bismarck  repeated  to 
me  the  same  complaint  about  grand  ducal  inter- 
ventions.    They  never  ceased.     They  were  never 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  191 

relaxed.  There  was  no  conciliating  these  great 
personages.  They  had  policies  and  purposes  of 
their  own,  which  were  never  those  of  Germany 
but  always  of  some  German  principality  with 
which  their  personal  interests  were  bound  up. 
There  is  nothing  so  selfish  as  a  second-class 
Royalty;  a  Serenity  with  a  dukedom  which  a 
pocket-handkerchief  would  cover. 

Bismarck  continued: 

"In  the  end  Austria  played  my  game  for  me. 
She  demanded  in  April,  1866,  the  demobilization 
of  the  Prussian  forces,  which  had  begun  to  put 
themselves  on  a  war  footing  in  March.  Then  I 
knew  the  Lord  had  delivered  her  into  our  hands. 
I  laid  the  demand  before  the  King,  saying:  *I  do 
not  know  whether  Your  Majesty  is  prepared  to 
surrender  the  command  of  your  army  to  yoiu: 
brother  of  Austria. '  He  took  fire  at  once.  Then 
it  was  that  he  felt  his  honour  as  a  soldier  was 
attacked.  From  that  moment  the  difficulty  was  to 
restrain  him.  We  were  not  quite  ready.  It  would 
have  been  dangerous  to  declare  war  at  once.  It 
was  dangerous,  perhaps,  to  let  the  moment  of  the 
King's  anger  pass,  lest  cotmsels  of  peace  should 
again  prevail.  But  one  risk  or  the  other  had  to  be 
taken,  and  I  chose  the  latter.  Two  months  later, 
June  1 8th,  war  was  declared,  and  the  King  issued 
a  manifesto  to  his  people  which  was  everything 
that  could  be  wished.  All  the  rest  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  God  of  Battles." 

Then  a  pause  and  a  piercing  glance,  then  on  he 
went: 


192  Ano^lo-American  Memories 


"After  Koniggratz  there  were  the  same  diffi- 
culties. The  King  could  not  at  first  understand 
why  this  career  of  victory  was  to  be  interrupted. 
He  was  King  no  longer.  He  was  Field  Marshal, 
commanding  the  forces  of  Prussia.  He  had  won 
a  great  battle.  The  power  of  Austria  was  broken. 
Vienna  lay  at  his  mercy.  Germany  was  waiting 
to  know  whether  Austria  or  Prussia  was  to  be  her 
futtire  master — ^well,  no,  not  master,  but  which  of 
the  two  was  to  be  the  chief  State  in  Germany 
and  the  true  leader  of  the  German  people.  What 
other  sign  of  supremacy  could  be  so  visible,  so 
convincing,  as  the  Prussian  armies  in  Vienna, 
Prussian  troops  encamped  in  the  Prater,  the 
Danube  bridled  and  bridged  by  us  Prussians? 
When  an  enemy's  capital  lay  at  the  victor's 
mercy,  why  should  he  not  enter  it?  What  great 
soldier  ever  refrained? 

"Thus,"  said  Bismarck,  "spoke  the  King.  I 
ventured  to  remind  His  Majesty  of  his  reluctance 
to  make  war  on  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  and  to 
ask  whether,  now  that  he  was  vanquished,  he 
wished  him  to  be  humiliated  also.  That  seemed 
to  touch  him.  We  talked  long.  He  was  sur- 
rounded by  generals  and  princes  who  urged  him 
on,  but  in  the  end  he  came  roimd  to  my  view  which 
had  been  his  own  view  before  the  war.  So  here 
we  are  in  Berlin  and  not  in  Vienna,  and  please  God 
we  shall  all  be  friends  again,  and  some  day  there 
will  be  one  Germany  and  not  two,  or  twenty,  or 
fifty,  as  in  times  past  and  to-day.  The  fruits  of 
our  triumph  are  yet  to  gather." 


A  Talk  with  Count  Bismarck  193 

Twice  during  this  discourse  I  had  risen  to  go, 

but  Bismarck  said:     "No,  I  have  not  finished." 

The  third  time,  it  was  long  past  one  o'clock,  and  I 

said:  "If  I  don't  go  now  Countess  Bismarck  will 

never  let  me  see  you  again. "     This  amused  him, 

and  he  remarked:   "I  suppose  you  think  I  am 

getting  sleepy!"     But  sleepy  he  was  not.      He 

had  talked  for  near  two  hotirs  with  unquenchable 

energy  and  freshness,  and  with  a  force  of  speech 

in  which  no  man  was  his  rival. 
13 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY  IN  ENGLAND 


TTHE  Ministers  and  Ambassadors  who  have 
^  represented  the  United  States  in  England 
have  an  interest  individually  and  as  a  body.  So 
long  a  line  of  men,  mostly  distinguished,  is  almost 
a  dynasty.  Some  of  them  are  totally  forgotten. 
Some  are  remembered  faintly.  Some  have  left  a 
lasting  impression.  I  have  known  a  round  dozen 
of  them.  The  public  memory  is  short.  If  I  say 
that  to  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  it  was  per- 
mitted to  do  a  greater  service  to  his  country 
abroad  than  to  any  American  since  Franklin — 
or  since  his  grandfather,  John  Adams,  who  might 
perhaps  as  a  diplomatist  be  ranked  above  Frank- 
lin— if  I  say  this,  there  are  Americans  to  whom 
it  will  seem  doubtful.  But  since  Adams's  greater 
service  consisted  in  a  just  menace  of  war  to  Eng- 
land if  she  let  loose  the  Alexandra,  the  current 
histories,  written  in  days  when  every  act  of  hos- 
tility to  England  was  applauded,  right  or  wrong, 
have  done  him  justice.     He  was  right,  a  thousand 

times  right,  and  we  cannot  remember  it  too  often. 

194 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      195 

But  what  Americans  ought  also  to  remember 
is  this,  that  when  Mr.  Adams  flung  his  glove  in 
Lord  Russell's  face  it  was  done  neither  from  temper 
nor  impulse.  It  was  the  considered  act  of  a 
Minister  who  had  weighed  all  the  chances,  who 
had  made  up  his  mind  that  open  war  was  better 
than  covert  hostility,  and  that  it  belonged  to 
him  to  accept  the  responsibility.  Whether  Mr. 
Seward  would  have  backed  up  his  Minister  may 
be  a  question,  had  the  Minister's  "This  means 
war"  been  met  by  Lord  Russell  with  "Then  war 
it  is."  But  the  British  Government  knew — even 
Lord  Palmerston  knew — they  were  in  the  wrong; 
and  they  gave  way.  But  they  gave  way  only 
because  Mr.  Adams  had  put  the  alternative  of 
war  before  them.  It  was  very  far  from  being  his 
only  service  or  his  only  triumph,  but  it  was  the 
greatest  of  all. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  diplomatic 
fortunes  of  the  United  States  were  in  the  hands  of 
the  American  Minister  to  Great  Britain  from  1861 
to  1863;  and,  indeed,  to  the  end  of  the  Civil  War. 
A  weak  man,  or  an  incompetent  Minister,  would 
have  brought  us  to  the  dust.  Adams,  of  course, 
was  neither.  He  was  a  match  for  anybody  in  his 
business  as  Minister.  He  had  the  intellectual 
qualities  and  he  had  the  personal  qualities.  More- 
over, he  was  an  Adams.  He  belonged  to  the 
governing  classes,  to  one  of  the  few  great  Ameri- 
can families  in  whom  the  traditions  and  gifts  of 
government  are  hereditary.  The  philosopher  who 
divided    the    population   of    Massachusetts   into 


196  Anglo-American  Memories 

men,  women,  and  Adamses  made  a  strictly  jcien- 
tific  distribution.  The  Adamses  were  of  that 
minority  which,  under  one  name  or  another  and 
in  all  countries  alike,  governs.  It  governs  none 
the  less  when  it  sees  fit  to  allow  the  democracy 
to  believe  itself  all-powerful  than  when  it  takes 
command  as  an  aristocracy. 

I  knew  Mr.  Adams.  Mr.  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  who 
smoothed  so  many  paths  for  me,  gave  me  a  letter 
to  him.  This  was  in  1867.  The  days  of  tumult 
and  conflict  were  over.  His  great  work  was  done, 
but  he  remained  Minister  till  1868.  The  legation 
was  then  in  Portland  Place.  Mr.  Moran  was 
Secretary  of  Legation;  an  excellent  official  whose 
service  in  that  position  in  London  lasted  seventeen 
years,  and  was  finally  rewarded  by  promotion  to 
Lisbon  as  Minister.  He  was  a  good  watchdog. 
A  secretary,  of  whatever  rank,  has  to  be  that. 
Like  Horatius,  he  has  to  keep  the  bridge,  albeit, 
against  his  own  countrymen.  They  are  the 
Volscians.  When  I  asked  to  see  Mr.  Adams  Mr. 
Moran  very  properly  wished  to  know  why,  and 
when  I  produced  Mr.  Dana's  letter  Mr.  Moran 
seemed  to  think  it  was  addressed  to  him,  and  not 
till  I  had  explained  that  it  was  Mr.  Dana's,  who 
was  Mr.  Adams's  friend,  and  that  I  had  no  other 
business  than  to  present  this  letter,  did  Mr.  Moran 's 
vigilance  relax.     We  became  friends  afterwards. 

When  I  saw  the  Minister  he  departed  a  little 
from  his  official  manner,  greeted  me  kindly,  and 
said:  "You  have  brought  me  a  very  strong  letter. 
What  can  I  do  for  you?"     When  I  thanked  him 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      197 

and  said  I  wanted  nothing,  he  relaxed  a  little 
further,  laughed  a  little,  and  observed  that  most 
of  his  countrymen  who  called  at  the  legation  had 
an  object.  He  talked  with  a  singular  precision; 
his  was  a  mind  of  precision,  like  the  modern  rifle, 
equally  good  at  short  range  and  long  if  you  adjust 
the  sights.  But  good  as  was  his  talk,  what  im- 
pressed you  most  was  the  silent  power  of  the  man ; 
the  force  in  reserve,  the  solidity  and  the  delicate 
temper  of  the  metal. 

I  dwell  a  moment  on  the  relations  between  travel- 
ling Americans  and  their  legation  or  embassy — ■ 
which  to  the  untravelled  may  seem  unimportant 
— ^because,  now  as  much  as  ever  and  perhaps  more 
than  ever,  the  duties  of  a  Minister,  of  an  Ambas- 
sador, of  the  embassy,  are  so  often  misunderstood 
by  that  portion  of  the  public  from  America  which 
is  intent  on  immediate  admission  to  Buckingham 
Palace.  I  have  known  many  secretaries  since 
Mr.  Moran's  time.  They  have  been,  as  a  rule, 
willing  and  competent,  really  desirous  to  be  of 
service  to  their  countrymen. 

There  is  no  other  embassy  than  the  American  on 
which  such  demands  are  made  as  on  ours  in 
London  and  in  Paris,  and  to  some  extent  in 
other  capitals.  These  demands  are  addressed 
first  of  all  to  the  Ambassador  or  Ambassadress. 
I  will  take  a  single  instance.  There  is  each  year 
a  large  number  of  Americans  who  desire  to  be 
presented  at  Court,  and  who  think  it  the  duty 
of  the  Ambassador  to  arrange  for  their  presenta- 
tion.    Many  of  these  applications  are  sent  by 


198  Anglo-American  Memories 

letter  well  in  advance  of  their  coming.  There 
are  hundreds  of  such  applications — literally  hund- 
reds ;  four  or  five  hundred  this  year  from  American 
ladies  who  thought  themselves,  and  were,  worthy 
to  appear  before  the  King  and  Queen  at  one  of  the 
three  Courts  presently  to  be  held.  The  number 
of  presentations  which  the  Ambassadress  is  en- 
titled to  make  at  each  of  the  three  Courts  is  four. 
That  is  a  rule,  an  ordinance  of  the  King  who  has 
the  sole  authority  in  such  matters.  Sometimes, 
in  some  special  case,  upon  reason  assigned,  the 
rule  is  relaxed  and  a  presentation  may  be  made 
outside  of  it.  But  all  such  requests  are  rigidly 
scrutinized  and  the  margin  is  very  narrow.  The 
exceptions  are  tmits. 

In  these  circumstances,  with  four  hundred  can- 
didates for  four  presentations,  what  is  an  unhappy 
Ambassadress  to  do?  The  American,  used  to  the 
easy  ways  prevailing  at  the  White  House,  supposes 
they  must  be  equally  easy  at  Buckingham  Palace ; 
or  that,  upon  a  word  from  the  x\merican  Ambas- 
sador, in  these  days  of  pleasant  Anglo-American 
relations,  all  doors  will  fly  open.  If  they  do  not, 
each  one  of  the  four  hundred  regards  hers,  as  a 
case  for  exceptional  favour.  She  has  come  three 
thousand  or  four  or  six  thousand  miles  in  order  to 
lend  the  distinction  of  her  republican  presence  to 
these  royal  functions.  What  is  an  Ambassador 
for  if  not  to  give  effect  to  these  good  intentions? 
The  Lord  Chamberlain  stands  at  the  door  with  a 
drawn  sword,  but  is  an  American  Ambassador 
to  be  intimidated  by  a  mere  officer  of  the  Roj^al 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      199 

Household?  It  is  in  vain  to  answer  that  even  a 
King  has  a  right  to  say  whom  he  can  receive  and 
whom  he  cannot.  Le  charbonnier  est  maitre 
chez  soi,  but  not,  they  think,  the  King  of  England. 

The  perplexities  arising  out  of  this  American 
eagerness  to  witness  these  royal  splendours  are 
innumerable.  The  resentment  arising  out  of 
inevitable  refusals  is  a  burden  which  every  Ambas- 
sador has  to  bear;  and  every  secretary  too.  Griev- 
ances are  of  many  kinds.  It  is  not  so  many  years 
since  an  American  Minister  was  asked  by  cable — 
almost  ordered — by  a  distinguished  fellow-country- 
man to  engage  lodgings  for  him  in  London.  It  is 
not  many  more  since  an  eminent  statesman,  arriv- 
ing after  Levees  and  Drawing-rooms  were  over, 
desired  a  secretary  to  arrange  that  he  and  his 
family  should  take  tea  with  the  Queen  at  Windsor 
Castle. 

These  are  cases  occurring  not  in  musical  comedy 
but  in  actual  life.  There  are  others,  relating  not 
to  royalty  but  to  society,  and  to  various  forms  of 
English  life.  But  it  is  already  only  too  evident 
that  the  diplomatic  duties  of  an  Ambassador  are 
not  his  only  anxieties.  The  others,  so  far  as  I 
know  anything  about  them,  have  always  been 
borne  cheerfully.  Everything  has  been  done  for 
the  American  in  London  that  could  be  done.  He 
is  taken  care  of  to  an  extent  that  the  Briton  abroad 
never  is,  nor  ever  expects  to  be.  But  to  all  human 
effort  there  is  a  limit. 


200  Anglo-American  Memories 

II 

MR.  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY 

Since  Mr.  Adams's  retirement  in  1868  we  have 
had  three  Ambassadors  whose  ability  as  diplo- 
matists entitles  them  to  places  in  the  front  rank. 
If  you  take  account  of  other  kinds  of  ability  and 
of  Ministers,  there  are  more  than  three.  Mr. 
Motley  was  a  brilliant  historian  whose  "Rise  of 
the  Dutch  Republic"  and  "History  of  the  United 
Netherlands"  gave  him  a  lasting  European  repu- 
tation and  added  distinction  to  American  literatiire. 
But  neither  his  six  years  of  service  as  Minister  to 
Austria,  1 861-7,  nor  his  year  and  a  half  in  England, 
1869-70,  proved  him  a  great  diplomatist. 

Austria  was  not  then,  and  is  not  now,  of  the 
first  importance  from  an  American  point  of  view. 
We  respect  her  wise  old  Emperor.  We  do  not, 
I  think,  agree  with  Mr.  Gladstone  in  saying  you 
can  nowhere  put  your  finger  on  the  map  and  say, 
"Here  Austrian  rule  has  been  beneficent."  She 
never  was  a  model  to  us  and  is  not  now.  But  since 
we  like  courage,  and  clear-sighted  decision,  and 
the  recognition  of  facts,  and  like  the  men  who 
have  these  gifts,  we  have  not  joined  very  heartily 
in  the  European  outcry  against  the  Austrian 
annexation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  We  are 
a  world-power  for  certain  purposes  only.  We 
stand  aloof  from  ptirely  European  complications. 
They  are,  as  a  rule,  no  affair  of  ours.  We  learned 
to  our  cost,  or  possibly  our  mortification,  not  very 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      201 

long  ago,  that  Austria,  "effete"  or  not,  was  capable 
of  giving  us  a  lesson  in  diplomacy;  or,  at  least,  in 
diplomatic  etiquette;  by  which  we,  or  our  late 
President,  may  or  may  not  have  profited. 

Mr.  Motley,  though  he  wrote  excellent  dis- 
patches and  made  no  diplomatic  or  social  mistakes 
in  that  difficult  Austrian  capital,  had  not  the 
smooth  temper  or  the  patient  arts  which  are 
essential  to  success  at  critical  moments.  He  was 
impetuous,  explosive,  rhetorical;  prone  to  inter- 
pret his  instructions  in  the  light  of  his  own  wishes 
or  convictions.  Socially  he  was  a  force,  even  in 
Vienna,  because  of  his  personal  charm,  his  dis- 
tinction of  appearance  and  of  manner.  Socially 
speaking,  he  was  an  aristocrat.  He  was  the  first 
American  Minister  in  London  to  establish  himself 
in  a  house  suitable  to  the  dignity  of  the  post.  Lord 
Yarborough's,  in  Arlington  Street.  He  was  known 
to  be  Count  Bismarck's  friend.  That  of  itself 
gave  him  a  kind  of  celebrity,  for  Count  Bismarck 
was  then  a  comparatively  unfamiliar  personage  in 
England,  where  the  outlook  of  the  average  man 
on  the  Continental  horizon  is  not  wide. 

One  of  the  first  questions  Count  Bismarck  asked 
me  when  I  first  talked  with  him  in  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse  in  1866  was  whether  I  knew  Motley. 

"Yes." 

"Are  you  going  to  Vienna?'* 

"Yes." 

"Then  of  course  you  will  see  Motley.  Be  sure 
you  give  him  a  message  from  me — a  warm  mes- 
sage.    I  have  never  forgotten  our  university  days 


202  Anelo-American  Memories 


'& 


together  at  Gottingen;  our  friendship.  He  knows 
that,  but  tell  him  again.  And  tell  him  I  hope  to 
see  him  in  Berlin  before  he  goes  home." 

As  he  spoke,  there  came  into  the  eyes  of  the 
Iron  Chancellor  a  look  I  had  not  seen  before. 
The  steel-blue  softened  into  the  blue  of  the  skies; 
after  rain,  as  the  Chinese  say.  His  friendship  for 
Motley  was  an  affectionate  friendship.  Later,  I 
talked  with  Motley  about  Bismarck  and  of  course 
delivered  my  message. 

"Yes,"  said  Motley,  "we  were  boys  together 
at  Gottingen.  His  was  a  different  life  from  mine. 
I  dare  say  you  have  heard  the  stories  about  young 
Bismarck's  exploits.  In  those  matters  he  was 
lilce  most  students  of  his  time  and  of  his  class. 
The  Prussian  Junker  is  a  being  by  himself.  But 
we  became  friends,  and  friends  we  have  remained. 
We  don't  meet  often,  but  the  friendship  has  never 
died  out  nor  decayed." 

Another  thing  made  JNIotley  far  otherwise 
popular  in  England;  his  passionate  Americanism. 
Mr.  Price  Collier  is  of  opinion  that  Englishmen 
do  not  like  Americans.  I  do  not  agree  with  Mr. 
Collier,  but,  whether  they  do  or  not,  they  like 
an  American  to  be  an  American.  They  lil<:ed 
Mr.  Motley  because  his  patriotism  burst  forth  in 
all  companies  and  at  all  times.  It  made  him,  or 
tended  to  make  him,  reluctant  to  compromise  on 
any  question  where  the  interests  of  his  country  were 
concerned.  But  compromise  is  of  the  essence  of 
diplomacy;  most  of  all  as  between  the  greatest 
Powers  of  the  World.     If  nobody  ever  yielded 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      203 

anything,  negotiations  could  end  only  in  surrender 
or  in  war;  the  two  things  which  it  is  the  business 
of  diplomacy  to  avoid.  Nothing  Motley  ever  did 
in  diplomacy  was  of  such  service  to  his  country 
as  his  two  letters  to  The  Times,  early  in  the  Civil 
War,  and  his  memorable  outburst  in  the  Athe- 
naeum Club.  To  write  the  letters  he  violated  the 
unwritten  law  of  diplomacy,  for  he  was  then 
Minister  to  Austria.  To  make  the  Athenaeum 
speech — for  it  was  nothing  less — he  departed 
from  the  other  unwritten  law  which  makes  a  club 
neutral  ground,  and  makes  anything  like  an 
oration  impossible. 

But  Motley  had  among  other  qualities  the 
quality  of  courage.  His  invective  in  the  Athe- 
naeum against  the  very  classes  among  whose  repre- 
sentatives he  stood  was  magnificent,  and  it  came 
very  near  being  war,  or  a  declaration  of  war.  He 
would  keep  no  terms  with  the  men  who  were 
enemies  of  his  country  in  such  a  crisis  as  that. 
If  it  had  been  anybody  but  Motley  who  thundered 
against  the  ignorance  and  prejudice  of  the  Con- 
federate allies  who  then  gave  the  tone  to  English 
society,  I  imagine  the  Committee  of  the  Club 
might  have  taken  notice.  But  Motley  fascinated 
while  he  rebuked.  When  he  had  done  denouncing 
them  as  renegades  to  English  ideas  and  enemies 
to  liberty,  they  liked  him  the  better.  I  can  think 
of  no  incident  so  like  this  as  PlimsolFs  defiance 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  when  he  rushed  into 
the  middle  of  the  floor  and  charged  his  fellow- 
members    with    sacrificing    the   lives    of   English 


204  Anglo-American  Memories 

sailors  to  the  cupidity  of  English  ship-owners, 
and  so  compelled  the  House  to  adopt  the  load- 
line. 

History  has  taken  note  of  Plimsoirs  exploit. 
Motley's  may  never  appear  in  pages  which  aim  at 
historical  dignity.  But  to  this  day,  when  near 
half  a  century  has  passed.  Motley's  is  still  remem- 
bered; still  spoken  of;  still  admired.  There  are 
men  living  who  heard  him.  The  English  do  not 
entirely  like  being  reminded  of  their  mistakes 
about  us  at  that  period,  but  they  bear  no  malice 
against  the  man  whose  admonition  did  much  to 
bring  them  to  their  senses.  On  the  contrary, 
through  all  these  forty-odd  years,  you  might  have 
heard  Motley  spoken  of  with  admiring  good-will. 

Before  all  things,  he  loved  his  own  country. 
Next  to  his  own  country,  longo  intervallo,  he  loved 
England,  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  we  have 
ever  sent  a  Minister,  or  anybody  else  to  England 
whom  the  English  themselves  have  loved  as  they 
loved  Motley.  His  deep  blue  eyes  shine  starlike 
across  all  that  interval  of  years.  He  carried  his 
head  high.  His  stature  was  well  above  the  usual 
stature  of  men.  In  all  companies  he  was  con- 
spicuous for  beauty  and  for  his  bearing.  And 
from  the  confusion  and  forgetfulness  of  that 
crowded  period  he  still  emerges,  a  living  force,  a 
brilliant  memory;  an  American,  as  Dean  Stanley 
said  of  him,  "in  whom  the  aspirations  of  America 
and  the  ancient  culture  of  Europe  were  united." 

There  is  supposed  to  be  still  a  mystery  about 
his  recall  by  President  Grant.     But  it  is  an  open- 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      205 

air  mystery.  Grant  struck  at  Sumner  through 
Motley.  Any  weapon  was  thought  good  enough 
to  beat  Sumner  with.  Motley  was  his  friend, 
Sumner  had  made  him  Minister.  It  was  deemed 
possible  to  humiliate  Sumner  and  to  teach  him  a 
lesson.  The  interests  of  the  country  were  not 
allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  this  high  purpose, 
and  so  Motley  went.  Or  rather,  he  did  not  go. 
Asked  to  resign  in  July,  1870,  he  disregarded  that 
request.  Grant  hesitated;  or  perhaps  Mr.  Fish, 
then  Secretary  of  State,  hesitated.  But  in  Novem- 
ber of  the  same  year,  Motley  was  recalled ;  an  act 
without  precedent  and  happily  never  repeated. 
No  charges  were  made.  There  were  none  to 
make.  Motley's  diplomatic  record,  his  personal 
character,  were  spotless.  The  childish  scandal 
started  at  Vienna  never  had  a  rag  of  evidence  to 
support  it ;  nor  anything  behind  it  but  anonymous 
personal  animosity.  His  departure  from  England 
left  no  stain  upon  anybody  except  upon  President 
Grant,  and  upon  such  officers  and  Ministers  of  his 
as  stooped  to  be  the  instruments  of  his  ill-will. 

Ill 

TWO  MINISTERS  AND  TWO  AMBASSADORS 

Mr.  Lowell  may  be  compared  with  Mr.  Motley 
as  an  example  of  our  American  method  of  appoint- 
ing Ministers  w^ho  not  only  are  not — for  they 
could  not  be — trained  diplomats,  but  whose 
character  is  essentially  undiplomatic.  Mr.  Motley 
was,  however,  so  much  more  a  man  of  the  world 


2o6  Anglo-American  Memories 

than  Mr.  Lowell  that  they  cannot  be  bracketed. 
There  is  a  similarity  but  no  identity.  Until 
Lowell  came  to  London  he  was  a  recluse.  Motley 
had  never  been  that.  Lowell  had  been  a  professor 
in  Harvard  University.  Motley,  though  a  student 
and  historian,  was  not  what  the  English  call 
"Donnish,"  whereas  Lowell  had  often  the  air  of 
lecturing  the  company,  as  if  a  company  of  pupils. 
Delightful  as  his  talk  was,  the  touch  of  the  peda- 
gogue was  there.  Indeed,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  life  in  a  university,  which  is  a  world  by 
itself,  is  ever  a  good  training  for  diplomacy.  An 
Ambassador  ought  to  be  a  man  of  the  world — 
it  is  perhaps  the  first  and  highest  of  his  qualifica- 
tions— but  not  a  man  of  a  world.  A  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  Greek  aorist  or  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  Antigonus  in  Asia  Minor  is  not  needed  in 
the  conduct  of  delicate  negotiations ;  nor  did  Lowell 
find  his  familiarity  with  Spanish  literature  of 
much  use  at  the  Foreign  Office,  or  in  that  larger 
foreign  office  known  as  English  Society. 

Society  was  to  Lowell  in  the  beginning  of  his 
English  experiences  a  stumbling-block ;  and  to  the 
end  he  only  too  often  made  a  misstep.  He  was 
liked  all  the  same.  The  English  are  a  people 
who  can  make  allowances,  nor  do  they  expect  a 
non-Englishman  to  be  cast  in  an  English  mould. 
They  recognized  his  positive  merits.  They  did 
not  dwell  on  what  they  thought  defects.  I  sup- 
pose I  have  before  now  told  what  I  always  thought 
a  characteristic  saying  of  an  English  host,  as 
Lowell  drove  awa}^  from  his  door: 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      207 

"I  need  not  tell  you  how  much  I  like  Lowell 
and  how  delighted  I  am  to  have  him  here  as  often 
as  he  will  come.  But  from  the  moment  he  enters 
my  house  till  he  is  gone  I  am  in  a  panic. " 

The  panic  into  which  this  genial  host  fell  was 
due  to  Lowell's  fighting  spirit;  surely  not  the 
spirit  of  a  diplomatist.  To  that  and  to  a  passion 
for  accuracy  which  he  allowed  to  become  pedantic 
and  aggressive.  He  left  behind  him  a  path  strewn 
with  victims;  a  renown  for  brilliancy;  a  just 
repute  for  many  amiable  and  delightful  traits. 
But  the  qualities  essential  to  a  Minister  were  not 
among  them. 

Mr.  E.  J.  Phelps,  who  came  after  him,  was  a 
lawyer,  and  a  lawyer  may  perhaps  be  expected  to 
be  more  combative  than  a  professor;  but  it  was 
not  so.  Mr.  Phelps  took  Mr.  Lowell's  house  in 
Lowndes  Square;  a  respectable  dwelling  in  a  very 
good  square,  but  by  no  means  an  ideal  legation. 
When  Mr.  Phelps  became  its  tenant  the  atmos- 
phere changed;  the  climate  was  a  softer  climate. 
The  amelioration  was  due,  in  part,  to  Mrs.  Phelps, 
who  was  beloved.  Mrs.  Lowell  had  been  an  in- 
valid. Her  husband  used  to  say:  ''My  wife  has 
no  acquaintance  and  I  have  no  invention" —  as 
an  excuse  for  social  shortcomings.  But  Mrs. 
Phelps  knew  a  great  many  people  and  charmed 
those  whom  she  knew. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  an  abler  man  than  Mr. 
Phelps  ever  came  from  the  United  States  to 
London  as  Minister.  He  was  hailed  at  once  as  a 
brother  by  his  brethren  of  the  Bar;  and  they  put 


2o8  Anglo-American  Memories 

him  on  a  level  with  their  best.  His  simplicity 
of  character,  his  humour,  his  truthfulness,  were 
evident  to  everybody.  Intellectually  he  w^as  any- 
body's equal.  As  Minister  he  had,  like  all  his 
predecessors,  his  trade  to  learn.  But  he  soon 
learned  what  was  essential;  learned  diplomacy  as 
if  it  were  a  new  cause  he  had  to  master  for  a  great 
trial.  His  mind  was  judicial.  He  ought  to  have 
been  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States. 

With  the  promise  of  a  nomination  to  that  great 
post  in  his  pocket,  he  went  home;  but  he  returned. 
The  will  of  Mr.  Pat  Collins,  of  Boston — hating 
Phelps  because  he  would  not,  as  Minister,  be  the 
instrument  of  Irish  ill-will  to  England — had  proved 
stronger  than  the  will  or  the  word  of  the  President. 
Mr.  Cleveland's  surrender,  no  doubt  under  strong 
political  pressure,  deprived  us  of  Mr.  Phelps's 
services  as  Chief  Justice  and  he  became  a  law 
lecturer  at  Yale.  He  was  a  jurist  who  w^ould  have 
adorned  either  place.  He  was  also  an  orator  who 
leaped  into  fame  by  a  single  speech,  at  the  fare- 
well dinner  given  him  in  London ;  although,  indeed, 
his  speech  at  a  dinner  of  welcome  on  his  arrival  was 
scarcely  less  felicitous.  "A  masterpiece  of  ora- 
tory dignified,  eloquent,  and  pathetic,"  said  Lord 
Rosebery,   a  judge  of  oratory  if  there  be  one. 

We  have  sent  to  England  so  many  different 
kinds  of  Alinisters  and  Ambassadors  that  they 
must  be  praised — and,  happily,  most  of  them  can 
be  praised — with  discrimination,  and  also  with 
brevity,  for  I  cannot  go  on  for  ever  writing  on  a 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      209 

single  topic.  I  pass  to  Mr.  Hay.  The  mansion 
Mr.  Hay  leased  in  Carlton  House  Terrace  was, 
like  all  those  on  the  south  side  of  that  short  street 
looking  on  St.  James's  Park,  adequate  and 
even  imposing.  It  was  like  unto  the  larger  one 
on  the  corner,  formerly  Lord  Ardilaun's,  now  Lord 
Ridley's.  When  Mr.  Blaine  entered  it  one  even- 
ing at  a  concert  he  said  to  the  friend  who  was 
with  him:  "This  is  the  first  really  palatial  house 
to  which  you  have  brought  me."  Not  a  palace, 
but  palatial. 

Mr.  Hay  knew  as  well  as  any  American  then 
living,  or  better,  what  a  part  social  influences  could 
be  made  to  play  in  diplomatic  life.  He  played 
that  part  with  distinction.  He  was  born  for  it. 
He  had  cultivated  his  natural  gifts  in  half  a  dozen 
European  capitals.  He  had  such  a  knowledge  of 
England  and  the  English  people  that  it  has  always 
seemed  a  pity  he  did  not  write  a  book  about  them. 
But  he  left  a  record  as  Ambassador  which  tells 
the  story.  He  was  a  man  who  carried  his  point 
without  a  collision.  He  loved  England  and  was 
beloved.  When  President  McKinley  sent  for  him 
to  come  home  and  be  Secretary  of  State  Hay  said : 
"I  am  a  soldier  and  must  obey  orders.  But  all 
my  fun  in  life  is  over. " 

As  it  turned  out  it  was  not  over.  A  still  greater 
career  opened  before  him,  and  he  was  the  first 
American  Secretary  of  State  to  make  an  imagina- 
tive use  of  his  opportunities,  and  a  great  name  in 
Europe  and  Asia  alike.  He  was  the  first  American 
Secretary  of  State  to  take  the  lead  in  a  world- 


2IO  Anglo-American  Memories 

embracing  policy;  to  unite  the  European  Powers 
in  support  of  it;  to  extract  a  binding  pledge  even 
from  Russia ;  to  bring  Japan,  not  very  willingly,  into 
this  charmed  circle;  and  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  American  influence  in  China  broad  and  deep. 
We  often  talk  of  America  as  a  world-power.  We 
have  a  right  to,  and  whatever  be  the  more  recent, 
and  perhaps  in  some  cases  rather  doubtful,  exten- 
sions of  our  authority,  we  owe  what  is  best  and 
most  lasting  in  our  position  abroad  to  Hay. 

None  of  all  this  could  Hay  foresee  when  he 
quitted  London  for  Washington.  What  he  knew 
was  that  he  was  relinquishing  a  place  for  which 
he  had  proved  his  fitness,  and  embarking  upon 
the  unknown.  This  sorrow  at  leaving  England 
was  genuine,  and  the  sorrow  of  his  English  friends, 
and — if  ever  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a  general 
sorrow — of  the  English  public,  was  not  less. 

The  late  Queen  said  of  Hay:  "He  is  the  most 
interesting  of  all  the  Ambassadors  I  have  known. " 
If  the  authority  for  this  is  wanted,  it  was  said  by 
the  Queen  to  Lord  Pauncefote,  then  British  Am- 
bassador to  the  United  States;  and  Lord  Paunce- 
fote repeated  it  to  me,  with  leave  to  repeat  it  to 
others,  as  I  now  do;  by  no  means  for  the  first 
time. 

To  Mr.  Hay  succeeded  Mr.  Choate.  I  hope  it 
will  be  taken  as  a  compliment  if  I  say  Mr.  Choate 
was  better  liked  the  longer  he  stayed.  He  had, 
when  he  arrived,  a  frankness  of  speech  which  is 
sometimes  called  American;  and  is,  no  doubt, 
characteristic    of    certain    individual    Americans. 


American  Diplomacy  in  England      211 

There  is  in  Mr.  Henry  James's  Bostonians  an 
American  banker  settled  in  England  to  whom  his 
son,  provoked  by  a  remark  of  the  father  to  a 
noble  lord  who  was  his  guest,  observes: 

"Well,  father,  you  have  lived  here  a  long  time, 
and  you  have  learned  some  of  the  things  they  say, 
but  you  have  n't  learnt  the  things  they  don't 
say." 

It  is  inevitable.  In  new  social  circumstances, 
time  is  of  the  essence.  It  is  no  reproach  to  Mr. 
Choate  that  he  found  it  so.  He  had,  and  has, 
an  exuberant  wit;  one  somewhat  contemptuous  of 
conventions  and  established  forms.  He  poured 
it  out  in  floods.  He  gave  free  scope  to  its  caprices. 
When  it  had  become  chastened  by  experience,  the 
English  delighted  in  it;  as  we  Americans  have 
long  delighted  in  it.  But  time  was  needed  on 
both  sides.  The  English  and  Mr.  Choate  had 
to  become  accustomed  to  each  other.  In  the 
end  they  did.  A  beautiful  harmony  grew  up,  and 
before  Mr.  Choate  went  home  he  was  an  accepted 
figure  in  the  society  which  at  first  had  sometimes 
a  questioning  spirit.  He,  too,  lived  as  an  Ambas- 
sador ought  to  live;  and  in  Carlton  House  Terrace, 
like  Mr.  Hay.  From  the  beginning  the  Foreign 
Ofiice  had  found  in  him,  in  Bismarck's  phrase,  a 
man  with  whom  it  was  possible  to  do  business. 
For  he  had  a  kind  of  preternatural  rapidity  in 
mastering  great  affairs,  and  a  marked  skill  in  the 
composition  of  public  addresses. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

TWO  UNACCREDITED  AMBASSADORS 

HTHEY  were  both  from  Boston.  In  the  days 
^  when  they  first  became  known  in  England 
and  began  their  work  of  concihation  as  between 
England  and  the  United  States,  Boston  was  still 
Boston,  and  New  York  had  only  begun  to  be  New 
York.  The  latter  statement  may  be  challenged, 
but  the  very  men  who  take  most  pride  in  the 
New  York  of  to-day  ought  to  be  the  first  to  accept 
it.  For  Manhattan  was  not  then  the  magnet,  as 
London  has  always  been,  which  drew  to  itself 
whatever  was  best  from  other  parts  of  the  land. 
Boston  was  still  the  Athens  of  America.  There 
were  excellent  names  elsewhere  and  at  least  one 
man  of  genius  who  owed  neither  birth  nor  cul- 
tiu-e  to  Boston;  but  the  capital  of  Massachusetts 
was  none  the  less  the  literary  capital  of  the  United 
States.  Emerson,  Holmes,  Lowell,  Longfellow, 
Agassiz,  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  were  all  living  and  all 
in  the  fulness  of  their  powers.  Theodore  Parker, 
the  greatest  force  in  the  American  pulpit,  was 
just  dead.  Chief  Justice  Shaw  had  been  for  thirty 
years  the  head  of  the  judiciary  of  his  own  state 
and  a  revered  authority  throughout   the  Union. 


Two  Unaccredited  Ambassadors       213 

Wendell  Phillips  had  no  rival  as  an  orator.  Har- 
vard was  the  first  of  American  colleagues.  The 
ideas  of  New  England,  which  were  the  ideas  of 
Boston,  had  spread  and  taken  root,  and  new  com- 
monwealths in  the  West  were  nourished  on  them; 
nay,  these  ideas  and  these  conceptions  of  law 
and  social  order  were  the  foimdation  stones  on 
which  new  States  were  built.  No  theologian  had 
arisen  to  dim  the  fame — a  great  yet  sombre  fame — 
of  Jonathan  Edwards.  Daniel  Webster,  "disap- 
pointed, defeated,  slept  by  the  solemn  waves  of 
the  Atlantic,"  but  you  cannot  think  of  Boston 
or  of  Massachusetts  without  him;  nor  did  the 
disasters  of  his  last  years  much  lessen  the  homage 
paid  him  at  death  or  his  immense  influence  on  the 
political  thought  of  the  whole  country. 

If  the  intellectual  pre-eminence  of  Boston  in 
those  days  was  som.ewhat  grudgingly  admitted 
by  New  York,  it  was  incontestable.  New  York 
presently  redressed  the  balance,  not  so  much  by 
her  own  creative  efforts  as  by  drawing  much  of 
what  there  was  best  in  Boston  to  the  banks  of  the 
Hudson.  I  believe  Mr.  Howells's  migration  at  a 
later  period  was  thought  to  be  the  decisive  sign; 
one  of  many.  Commercial  influences  prevailed 
over  the  purer  influences  of  literature.  The 
publisher  took  command.  But  I  apprehend  that 
Mr.  Howells  did  not  forsake  the  Charles  for  the 
Hudson  without  many  regrets.  The  atmosphere 
was  not  the  same.  Old  Abernethy  used  to  say: 
"If  you  live  in  the  best  air  in  the  world,  leave  it 
and  go  to  the  second  best."     Unconsciously,  per- 


214  Anglo-American  Memories 

haps,  Mr.  Howells  obeyed  that  medical  prescrip- 
tion.    He  went  to  the  second  best. 

Did  he  find  a  Tavern  Club  in  New  York?  Over 
the  nodes  ccznaqiie  of  that  pleasant  company  in 
Boston  Mr.  Howells  used  to  preside,  with  a  genial 
charm  all  his  own.  It  was  so  long  ago  that  I  may 
be  forgiven  if  I  remember  in  print  one  of  those 
evenings  which  owed  so  much  to  his  presiding 
genius.  He  spoke  and  was  the  cause  of  speaking 
in  others.  He  had  the  tact  which  drew  from 
others  more  than  they  supposed  they  had  to  give. 
He  gently  compelled  the  most  reluctant  of  guests 
from  their  chairs.  There  was  a  brief  eulogy  on 
the  victim.  It  was  Mr.  Howells's  art  to  paint  a 
portrait  so  vivid,  albeit  flattering,  it  needed  no 
name  to  be  recognized.  "If,"  said  he,  "you 
were  in  any  doubt  of  his  identity,  you  will  recog- 
nize him  by  the  look  of  determined  unconscious- 
ness on  his  face." 

I  reckon  it  among  the  highest  of  Mr.  Howells's 
many  services  that  he  has  been  at  times  an  inter- 
preter between  England  and  America,  and  in  more 
senses  than  one.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  every 
American  writer  who  reaches  an  English  audience 
is  an  interpreter,  or,  better  still,  an  Ambassador, 
the  business  of  an  Ambassador  being  to  keep  the 
peace.  For  when  Lord  Dufferin  was  complimented 
on  his  diplomatic  fame  he  answered:  "Ah,  that 
is  all  a  mistake.  So  long  as  we  succeed  you  never 
hear  of  us.  It  is  when  we  have  failed  that  the 
worid  begins  to  know  of  our  existence. " 

That,  however,  is  a  malapropos  anecdote,  and 


Two  Unaccredited  Ambassadors       215 

tells  the  other  way;  but  in  such  papers  as  these 
there  must  be  anecdotes.  Mr.  Howells  was  not 
a  silent  Ambassador,  and  he  would  not  have 
been  an  Ambassador  had  he  been  silent.  His 
books  spoke  for  him.  The  English  thought,  and 
still  think,  that  his  writings  had  some  qualities 
which  it  does  not  suit  the  parent  stock  to  consider 
distinctively  American.  They  liked  the  reserve, 
the  simplicity,  the  continual  though  implicit 
reference  to  English  literature.  It  was  partly 
because  of  the  homage  he  paid  to  the  great  masters 
that  they  presently  came  to  accept  him  also  as  a 
master.  They  were  quite  aware  that  his  homage 
was  sometimes  reluctant.  When  it  went  further 
and,  as  in  his  unlucky  criticism  of  the  greatest  of 
English  masters  in  fiction,  became  a  caricature, 
they  resented  it  but  they  bore  no  malice.  How 
can  you  bear  malice  against  a  writer  with  so  much 
sweetness  of  nature  as  Mr.  Howells.'* 

Besides,  what  he  has  written  about  England  is 
sympathetic;  and  is  thought  sympathetic  by  the 
English.  If  it  be  also  at  times  critical,  the  English 
accept  the  criticism  as  it  is  meant.  Nothing  is 
truer  about  them  than  their  indifference  to  critic- 
ism. They  regard  Mr.  Howells' s  essays  as  so 
many  studies,  and  these  studies  as  interpretative. 
What  he  has  lately  been  writing  of  provincial 
towns  is  almost  a  revelation  to  the  Londoner,  who 
himself  is  sometimes  called  provincial,  and  does 
not  mind. 

Another  Bostonian,  Mr.  Henry  James,  took  a 
longer  flight  still;  all  the  way  from  Boston  to 


2i6  Anglo-American  Memories 

London  and  so  to  Paris  and  Italy,  in  all  of  which 
he  is  equally  at  home.  It  was,  I  think,  Colonel 
Higginson  who,  in  his  patriotic  impatience  of  the 
expatriated  American,  winged  a  shaft  at  Mr. 
James,  and  at  those  who  called  him  cosmopolitan. 
"In  order  to  be  truly  cosmopolitan,"  said  this 
eminent  colonel,  "a  man  ought  to  know  something 
of  his  own  coimtry. "  To  which  Mr.  James  has 
lately  made  the  best  possible  reply  by  a  book  on 
his  own  country  which  is  an  appreciation  like  no 
other  of  recent  days.  And  I  will  say  this,  that  if 
Colonel  Higginson  supposes  an  American  or  a 
Russian  or  a  Japanese  can  win  favour  with  the 
English  by  trying  to  be  English  he  is  profoundly 
mistaken.  The  English  like  an  American  to  be 
an  American.  If  he  is  a  writer,  they  like  his 
writings  to  be  American. 

Who  are  the  American  authors  most  popular  in 
England?  I  will  take  the  dead  only.  They  are 
Hawthorne,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Longfellow,  Holmes, 
Dana,  and  Walt  Whitman;  others,  perhaps,  but 
if  there  are  others  they  are  all  like  these  I  have 
named,  American  to  the  finger-tips,  American  in 
thought,  in  language,  in  method ;  nay,  if  you  like,  in 
accent.  That  is  why  they  are  relished  in  England. 
I  do  not  include  Poe.  He  is  better  understood  in 
France  than  in  England;  his  genius  is  perhaps 
more  Gallic  than  Saxon.  So  much  so  that  when 
the  American  Ambassador  delivered  a  discourse 
at  the  celebration  in  London  of  Poe's  centennial, 
it  was  as  if  he  had  spoken  on  a  topic  remote  from 
the   minds   of   this   English   people.     They  read 


Two  Unaccredited  Ambassadors       217 

him  because  he  was  American  Ambassador,  or 
because  he  was  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  and  for  his 
graceful  mastery  of  the  topic  and  of  the  English 
language.  But  to  them  he  seemed  to  be  an- 
nouncing a  discovery. 

When  Mr.  Henry  James  adopted  his  new  man- 
ner— the  manner  in  which  all  his  books  since  The 
Awkward  Age  have  been  produced — his  English 
readers  turned  away  from  him,  or  many  of  them 
did.  The  change  coincided,  or  nearly  so,  with 
his  change  from  pen  and  ink  to  dictation;  a 
perilous  experiment.  But,  whatever  else  may  be 
said  of  it,  Mr.  James  has  gradually  won  back  his 
English  public.  To  them  the  matter  is  more  than 
the  manner,  as  in  Mr.  Meredith's  case  also.  The 
American  is  now  thought  a  more  distinguished 
writer  than  before.  I  use  the  word  distinguished 
as  he  uses  it,  meaning  that  he  has  more  distinction 
as  a  writer  and  tiu'ns  out  more  distinguished  work. 
They  are  no  longer  repelled  by  his  colloquialisms, 
by  his  Gallicisms,  by  his  obscurities,  by  his  in- 
volutions of  structure,  or  by  the  labyrinthine 
length  of  his  sentences.  Through  all  these,  they 
now  perceive,  pierces  the  true  genius  of  the  man. 
Therefore  is  he  another  Ambassador,  another  of 
those  Americans  who,  from  having  become  known 
abroad,  have  added  lustre  to  the  fame  of  their 
own  country  where,  in  European  estimation,  it 
most  needs  lustre,  namely,  in  the  domain  of 
letters. 

By  the  time  the  New  Yorker  of  to-day  has  read 
thus  far,  if  he  has  read,  it  may  have,  become  clear 


21 8  Anglo-American  Memories 

to  him  how  great  a  part  of  all  the  renown  in  litera- 
ture we  have  abroad  comes  to  us  from  Boston. 
All  the  American  writers  best  known  here  and 
most  read,  Whitman  excepted,  are  of  Boston,  or 
of  the  State  of  which  Boston  is,  or  was,  the  final 
expression.  If  another  exception  were  to  be  made 
it  would  be  Lincoln,  whose  greatest  pieces  of  prose, 
and  most  of  all  the  Gettysburg  address,  are  well 
known  to  Englishmen  who  know  anything  of 
America.  If  what  Dr.  Jonson  said  in  the  pre- 
face to  his  dictionary,  "The  chief  glory  of  every 
people  arises  from  its  authors,"  be  true,  then 
what  do  we  Americans  not  owe  to  Boston?  Sup- 
posing, that  is,  we  care  for  the  judgment  of  a 
foreign  nation,  which  Browning  declared  to  be 
like  the  judgment  of  posterity. 

For  some  of  these  Bostonians  London  has  a 
personal  affection.  Emerson  is  beloved.  Lowell 
was  an  immense  favourite;  a  favourite  notwith- 
standing his  combativeness  in  af  society  which 
prefers  toleration  to  excursions  on  the  warpath. 
Holmes  during  his  visits  here  was  idolized,  and  as 
the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table  he  is  idolized, 
and  quoted  day  in  and  day  out.  Of  Longfellow's 
Poems  in  the  pre-copyright  days  more  copies  were 
sold  than  of  Tennyson,  and  when  he  was  here  the 
English  thought  him  almost  one  of  themselves. 
Dana's  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast  is  the  one  story 
of  the  sea  which,  among  many  rivals,  seems  likely 
to  be  immortal  in  England,  and  is,  meantime, 
the  one  which  in  circulation  year  after  year  far 
exceeds  all  others.     And  Dana  was  one  of  those 


Two  Unaccredited  Ambassadors       219 

Americans  on  whom  the  EngHsh  found  an  Eng- 
lish birthmark. 

There  was  a  time  when  Mr.  James  and  Mr. 
Howells  used  to  be  bracketed,  as  if  they  hunted  in 
couples;  which  was  not  a  discriminating  view, 
though  a  popular  view.  It  expressed  itself  in  the 
jingle  about  "Howells  and  James  Young  Men," 
of  which  the  music-hall  was  the  proper  home; 
and  there  it  related  to  a  firm  in  Regent  Street,  now 
extinct.  But  it  was  sung  by  the  daughters  of  a 
house  where  Mr.  James  was  a  guest,  and  almost 
in  his  hearing,  to  the  horror  of  its  mistress.  To 
all  popularity  there  are  penalties.  But  the  popu- 
larity of  Mr.  James  is  perennial. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

SOME   ACCOUNT   OF   A  REVOLUTION   IN  INTER- 
NATIONAL JOURNALISM 


RETURNING  to  New  York  in  the  early  autumn 
of  1866  and  spending  the  winter  in  The 
Tribune  office,  I  was  again  sent  abroad  the  fol- 
lowing year,  this  time  imder  an  agreement  to 
remain  till  1870.  I  was  to  go  as  the  exponent  of 
a  new  theory  of  American  journalism  in  Europe,  a 
theory  based  on  the  belief  that  the  cable  had 
altered  all  the  conditions  of  international  news 
gathering  and  that  a  new  system  had  to  be  created. 
I  had  been  long  enough  in  London  and  on  the 
Continent  to  be  convinced  that  London  must  be- 
come the  distributing  centre  of  European  news  for 
America.  I  talked  it  over  with  Mr.  Young  on  my 
return.  Mr.  Young  had  a  mind  open  to  new 
ideas  and  he  was  unusually  quick  in  deciding. 
But  this  suggestion  struck  him  at  first  as  a  pro- 
posal to  impair  the  authority  of  the  managing 
editorship.  He  thought,  naturally,  there  ought 
to  be  but  one  executive  head,  and  that  a  European 
manager,  no  matter  how  strictly  subordinated  to 


Revolution  in  Journalism  221 

his  chief  in  New  York,  would,  at  such  a  distance, 
acquire  too  much  independence.  The  proposal, 
moreover,  was  far-reaching  and  had  no  precedent; 
not  that  the  want  of  a  precedent  troubled  Mr. 
Young  much.  He  had  spent  much  of  his  time 
as  managing  editor  of  The  Tribune  in  disregarding 
precedents  and  laying  down  laws  of  his  own.  But 
this  scheme,  he  presently  saw,  would  never  have 
been  thought  of  had  not  submarine  telegraphy 
taken  a  practicable  shape,  nor  would  such  a 
scheme  have  been  of  much  practical  use  so  long 
as  news  went  by  mail.  Nor  could  it  be  tried  till 
a  great  many  details  had  been  thought  out. 

Under  the  old  system,  each  Tribune  corre- 
spondent reported  directly  to  New  York.  Had 
that  system  remained  unaltered,  the  triumphs  of 
American  journalism  in  Europe  would  have  been 
impossible.  That  all  the  European  representa- 
tives of  this  paper  should  report  to  London  instead 
of  New  York  might  seem  no  very  great  matter, 
but  in  truth  it  was  vital.  When  it  had  once  been 
decided  to  establish  a  Tribune  office  in  London,  a 
revolution  had  taken  place.  There  was  to  be  a 
responsible  agent  in  charge.  He  was  to  organize 
a  new  administration.  He  was  to  appoint  and 
dismiss  other  agents  all  over  the  Continent.  He 
was — subject,  of  course,  to  orders  from  New  York 
— to  transmit  news  to  New  York. 

He  was  to  be  the  telephone  between  Europe  and 
the  managing  editor  in  New  York.  But  he  was 
to  relieve  the  New  York  office  of  its  supervision 
over  the  European  staff.     What  St.  Petersburg 


222  Anelo-American  Memories 


't) 


and  Vienna,  Berlin  and  Paris,  had  to  say  to  New 
York  was  to  be  said  through  London.  There 
would  be  an  economy  of  time.  Orders  could  be 
sent  from  London  and  results  received  much  more 
quickly  than  from  New  York.  In  an  emergency 
as  was  presently  to  be  shown,  the  difference  was 
enormous.  The  notion  of  the  centrality  of  Lon- 
don, of  its  unity  as  a  news  bureau,  was  perfectly 
simple. 

But  it  took  years  for  that  one  simple  notion  to 
get  itself  completely  accepted  and  acted  upon. 
I  will  give  one  illustration.  When  the  fatal  da^'-s 
of  July,  1870,  were  upon  us  I  thought  I  saw  a  great 
opportunity.  The  Tribune  alone  had  an  organi- 
zation in  Europe  competent  for  the  work  of  sup- 
plying war  news.  But  as  I  did  not  know  how 
much  news  New  York  wanted,  I  cabled  a  question 
to  the  editor  then  temporarily  in  charge.  The 
answer  came  back  that  I  was  to  go  to  Berlin. 
It  would  have  been  a  fatal  step.  I  should  have 
come  under  German  military  rule,  and  cabling 
from  Berlin  at  that  time  and  much  later  was  a 
slow  and  uncertain  business.  Nor  could  the  plans 
I  had  in  mind  have  been  carried  out  from  Berlin. 
There  would  have  been  a  censorship  upon  every 
dispatch,  and  censorship  means  not  merely  muti- 
lation to  suit  a  bureaucratic  ideal,  but  delay. 
Berlin,  moreover,  was  remote,  while  London  is  on 
the  road  to  New  York,  and  spite  of  the  cable  the 
delay  from  that  cause  also  would  have  been  injuri- 
ous. In  short,  I  disobeyed  the  New  York  order. 
I  explained,  of  course,  but  I  pointed  out  that  an 


Revolution  in  Journalism  223 

unfettered  discretion  was  essential  to  success,  and 
I  asked  to  be  allowed  a  free  hand  or  to  be  relieved. 
I  was  given  the  free  hand. 

These  methods  have  since  become  so  familiar 
that  there  is  little  need  to  explain  them,  but  at 
that  time  they  were  not  merely  novel  but  were 
derided  by  journalists  of  great  experience.  Mr. 
James  Gordon  Bennett  was  one  of  those  who 
scoffed  at  them,  and  presently  was  one  of  those 
who  followed  them  and  made  a  large  use  of  them, 
greatly  to  his  own  profit  and  to  that  of  the  con- 
siderable news  organization  he  controlled.  But 
at  first  he  said  nothing  would  induce  him  to  set 
up  in  London  a  rival  office  to  New  York.  Now, 
every  important  journal  in  the  United  States  has 
offices  in  London,  and  subsidiary  offices  in  Paris 
and  often  in  other  European  capitals.  But  the 
authority  of  New  York  or  Chicago  remains  what 
it  was. 

The  idea  once  accepted,  somebody  had  then  to 
be  appointed  to  London.  Mr.  Young  asked  me 
to  go.  I  declined.  I  liked  leader-writing  much 
better  than  news-collecting.  I  thought  the  power 
of  influencing  opinion  through  the  editorial  columns 
of  The  Tribune  the  most  enviable  of  all  powers. 
The  London  scheme,  moreover,  was  an  experiment 
and  I  did  not  think  I  had  had  enough  experience 
with  news  to  justify  my  undertaking  so  large  a  busi- 
ness. But  Mr.  Young  pressed  it,  saying  it  was  my 
scheme  and  I  ought  to  put  it  in  operation.  He 
might,  had  he  chosen,  have  issued  an  order  and  I 
should  have  had  no  choice  but  to  obey  or  resign; 


224  Anglo-American  Memories 

but  that  was  not  his  way.  He  trusted  to  persua- 
sion; he  treated  his  subordinates  as,  for  some 
purposes,  his  equals,  and  he  did  not  care  for  un- 
willing service.  He  was  a  past  master  in  the  art 
of  stating  a  case  and  in  the  use  of  personal  influence. 
In  the  end  he  convinced  me  not  only  that  I  ought 
to  go,  but  that  I  wanted  to  go,  and  I  gave  in,  still 
with  misgivings  but  not  without  a  certain  en- 
thusiasm at  the  prospect  of  doing  a  new  thing 
in  journalism.  It  was  like  Young  to  say,  as  he 
did  at  parting:  "Remember,  I  don't  care  about 
methods.  You  will  use  your  own  methods. 
What  I  want  is  results. " 

The  incredulity  with  which  The  Tribune  experi- 
ment was  first  received  gave  way  slowly,  but  it 
gave  way.  I  suppose  it  was  the  news  service  of 
The  Tribune  in  the  Franco-German  War  in  1870 
which  finally  convinced  the  most  sceptical.  Sol 
will  pass  to  that,  stopping  only  to  explain  one 
other  matter. 

It  was  in  1870  also  that  the  first  international 
newspaper  alliance  was  formed.  The  papers  which 
formed  it  were  The  Tribune  of  New  York  and 
The  Daily  News  of  London.  I  saw  at  the  begin- 
ning that  it  was  desirable  to  be  in  a  position  to 
know  what  news  would  go  to  New  York  through 
Reuter  and  The  Associated  Press.  That  know- 
ledge was  only  to  be  had  inside  of  a  London 
newspaper  office,  and  it  was  with  that  view  chiefly 
that  I  first  made  a  proposal  to  The  Daily  News. 
I  suppose  I  chose  that  paper  because  I  knew  its 
editor  and  manager.      I  did  not  think  it  likely 


Revolution  in  Journalism  225 

that  The  Daily  News  service  from  the  battlefields 
would,  at  first,  add  much  to  our  own;  nor  did  it. 
But  I  went  to  Mr.  —  afterward  Sir  John^ — • 
Robinson  with  an  offer  to  exchange  news,  whether 
by  telegraph  or  mail,  on  equal  terms;  we  to  give 
them  everything  we  had  and  they  to  do  the  like 
by  us.  The  offer  was  very  coldly  received.  Mr. 
Robinson  could  see  no  advantage  to  his  paper  from 
such  an  agreement.  I  told  him  what  we  were 
doing  and  intending  to  do.  Still  he  was  incredu- 
lous and  he  finally  said  No.  I  told  him  I  did  not 
mean  that  either  paper  should  narrow  its  opera- 
tions at  the  seat  of  war  in  expectation  of  help  from 
the  other,  nor  that  either  should  credit  the  other 
with  its  news.  It  was  to  be  a  war  partnership 
and  each  would  put  all  its  forces  in  the  field.  But 
he  would  not  have  it. 

It  was  Mr.  Frank  Hill,  then  editor  of  The  Daily 
News,  who  came  to  the  rescue.  The  news  depart- 
ment was  none  of  his  but  he  had  an  all-embracing 
intelligence,  and  when  he  heard  what  the  offer  was 
he  pressed  it  upon  his  colleague  and  finally  secured 
its  acceptance.  The  credit  for  whatever  benefit 
inured  to  The  Daily  News  from  this  partnership 
was  therefore  due  originally  to  Mr.  Frank  Hill 
and  not  to  Mr.  Robinson. 

It  remains  true  that  Mr.  Robinson  was  a  very 
distinguished  journalist  and  that  his  work  at  a 
later  period  of  the  war  was  of  a  high  order.  If 
he  had  done  nothing  but  secure  the  services  of 
Mr.  Archibald  Forbes  he  would  have  earned  a 
lasting  renown  as  manager.     But  before  Forbes's 

IS 


226  Anglo-American  Memories 

work  had  begun  to  tell,  The  Daily  News,  receiving 
and  publishing  The  Tribmie  dispatches  as  its  own 
— as  it  had  an  absolute  right  to  do  under  our  agree- 
ment— had  won  a  great  reputation  for  its  war 
news.  Sir  John  Robinson  is  dead  but  I  published 
a  statement  on  this  subject  while  he  was  living, 
which  was  brought  to  his  attention.  I  said  then, 
as  I  say  now,  that  The  Daily  News  owed  to  The 
Tribune  almost  the  whole  of  the  war  news  by 
which  its  reputation  was  at  first  acquired.  This 
period  lasted  down  to  the  surrender  of  Metz; 
perhaps  later.  My  statement  was  never  disputed. 
It  may  still  be  found  in  Harper's  Magazine,  where 
the  facts  are  set  forth  much  more  fully  than  here, 
and  it  was  this  article  in  Harper's  which  Sir  John 
Robinson  read.  We  had  ceased  to  be  on  good 
terms.  I  forget  why.  He  grumbled  a  little  at 
the  publication  of  the  story,  though  without 
reason,  but  he  attempted  no  denial  and  no  denial 
was  possible. 

The  matter  was  much  discussed  at  the  time  in 
the  American  Press  and  there  were  many  criticisms, 
based  on  an  absolute  ignorance  of  the  real  arrange- 
ment between  the  two  papers.  Further  confusion 
grew  out  of  the  fact  that  one  of  The  Tribune's 
war  correspondents  had  a  contract  with  The  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  then  owned  by  Mr.  George  Smith 
and  edited  by  Mr.  Frederick  Greenwood,  one  of 
the  great  journaHsts  of  his  time.  This  contract 
left  him  free  to  deal  with  us  but  not  with  any 
London  paper.  It  followed,  therefore,  that  some 
of  The  Tribune  dispatches  appeared  in  The  Daily 


Revolution  in  Journalism  22^ 

News  and  some  in  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  Our 
New  York  friends  could  not  understand  this  tri- 
partite agreement;  but  then  it  was  not  necessary 
they  should;  and  their  comments  were  much 
more  amusing  than  they  would  have  been  if  they 
had  known  the  truth.  The  mind  moves  with 
great  freedom  when  unhampered  by  facts. 


II 


"American  methods,"  said  certain  English 
journalists,  seeking  to  account  for  The  Tribune's 
successes  in  the  Franco-German  War.  The  phrase, 
whether  meant  as  eulogy  or  criticism,  was,  at 
any  rate,  explanatory,  for  we  had  had  four  years 
of  Civil  War  experience,  from  1861  to  1865,  while 
the  English,  unless  we  reckon  the  Indian  Mutiny, 
had  to  go  back  to  the  Crimean  War  in  1854  for 
precedents  in  war  correspondence.  Moreover, 
the  one  great  triumph  of  English  journalism  in 
the  Crimea  was  not  a  triumph  of  method.  It 
was  a  triumph  due  to  the  genius  and  courage  of 
one  man.  Dr.  Russell,  who  exposed  through  The 
Times  the  murderous  mistakes  of  army  organiza- 
tion and  army  administration,  and  so  forced  the 
War  Office  and  the  Horse  Guards  to  set  their 
houses  in  order.  It  was  a  great  public  service; 
perhaps  the  greatest  which  any  journalist  in  the 
field  ever  performed.  But  it  was  not  exactly 
journalism.  It  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
that  speed  and  accuracy  in  the  collection  and 
transmission  of  news  which,  after  all,  must  be  the 


228  Anglo-American  Memories 

chief  business  of  a  correspondent.  It  has  never 
been  imitated.  It  never  will  be  till  another  Rus- 
sell appears  to  rescue  another  British  army  in 
another  Crimea.  That  great  exploit  was  not 
primarily  journalistic  but  personal. 

I  do  not  suppose  it  occurred  to  any  of  the  many 
able  newspaper  managers  in  London  that  in  deal- 
ing with  a  European  war  they  would  find  a  rival 
in  an  American  journal.  They  knew  there  was 
an  Atlantic  cable  but  probably  thought,  if  they 
thought  about  it  at  all,  that  the  cable  tolls  would 
be  prohibitive,  for,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  moment, 
they  had  not  yet  grasped  the  idea  that  the  tele- 
graph is  only  a  quicker  post.  Putting  the  question 
of  cost  aside,  it  does  not  matter  how  a  piece  of 
news  or  a  dispatch  or  a  letter  is  transmitted; 
whether  by  rail  or  by  steamship  or  by  wire.  What 
matters  is  that  it  should  get  there.  To-day  this 
is  a  truism.  Forty  years  ago  it  was  a  paradox; 
in  Europe  if  not  in  America.  There  had  been 
great  achievements  in  the  transmission  of  news 
long  before  the  telegraph  was  invented.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  they  were  not,  some  of  them, 
greater  than  those  due  to  the  telegraph.  But  so 
far  as  the  use  of  the  telegraph  is  concerned  we  are 
dealing  with  the  beginnings.  The  year  1870  is  a 
year  of  transition  if  not  of  revolution.  I  think  we 
are  entitled  to  remember  with  satisfaction  that  in 
telegraphic  news  enterprise,  even  in  Europe,  it  was 
an  American  journal  which  led  the  way,  and  that 
The  Tribune  was  that  journal. 

In  forming   their   war  plans  the  managers   of 


Revolution  in  Journalism  229 

English  journals,  as  I  was  saying,  left  American 
journals  out  of  account.  Perhaps  they  knew,  in  a 
dim  kind  of  way,  that  The  Tribune  had  an  office 
in  London.  But  the  office  had  been  there  for 
three  years  and  no  other  American  joiu-nal  had 
yet  followed  The  Tribune's  example.  Important 
dispatches  had  been  sent  from  this  London  office 
to  the  New  York  office  by  cable,  but  the  London 
managers,  if  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  cable 
and  of  The  Tribune  office  in  London,  had  not  co- 
ordinated these  two  pieces  of  knowledge.  The 
area  of  all  possible  competition  in  war  was  news 
confined,  in  their  view,  to  Fleet  Street  and  Print- 
ing House  Square. 

They  sat  content,  true  Britons  as  they  were,  in 
their  belief  in  their  own  supremacy;  a  supremacy 
often  challenged,  never  overthrown.  The  Times 
was  still  The  Times,  The  Morning  Post  was  still 
a  threepenny  paper.  The  Daily  Telegraph  was 
still  the  organ  of  the  small  shopkeeper.  The 
Daily  News  was  the  mouthpiece  of  Nonconformist 
Liberalism,  with  no  great  pretensions  to  any  other 
sort  of  authority.  The  evening  journalism  was 
not  supposed  to  be  eager  for  news,  except  news  of 
that  peculiar  description  which  offers  its  readers 
an  afternoon  sensation  and  is  unaccountably 
omitted  from  the  next  morning's  papers.  The 
news  journalism  was  yet  to  be  born.  The  Daily 
Mail  had  never  been  heard  of.  Lord  Northclift^e, 
the  man  who  has  done  more  than  all  others  of  his 
time  toward  the  creation  of  a  new  journalism  in 
England,   and  who  is  almost  more  a  statesman 


230  Anglo-American  Memories 

than    a    journalist,    was    then    just    two    years 
old. 

Moreover,  the  outbreak  of  war  was  unexpected. 
Lord  Granville  was  then  Foreign  Secretary  and 
of  an  unshaken  optimism.  Lord  Hammond,  Per- 
manent Under  Secretary  of  the  Foreign  Ofhce,  had 
announced  a  fortnight  before  that  never  since  he 
had  held  a  place  in  that  office  had  the  sky  been 
so  free  from  clouds.  M.  Emile  Ollivier  has  lately 
retold  with  skill  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes 
how  the  war  was  brought  on,  but  there  is  nothing 
in  his  elaborate  special  pleading  to  show  that  any 
reasonable  man  ought  to  have  expected  the  French 
Emperor,  or  even  M.  Ollivier  himself,  to  follow 
the  unreasonable,  mad,  arrogant  policy  they  did 
follow.  Nor  can  Downing  Street  or  Fleet  Street 
or  Printing  House  Square  be  blamed  for  not  being 
aware  that  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  France  was  in 
the  control  of  men  who  would  play  into  Bismarck's 
hands.  For,  let  M.  Ollivier  say  what  he  will, 
Bismarck's  opportunity  would  not  have  come  had 
not  France,  after  Prussia  had  withdrawn  Prince 
Leopold's  candidature  for  the  throne  of  Spain, 
demanded  a  guarantee  that  it  should  never  be 
renewed  or  never  be  supported  by  Prussia.  Never 
had  events  moved  so  quickly.  Prince  Leopold 
was  first  heard  of  July  4th,  1870.  On  the  12th  he 
renounced  his  claim.  On  the  13th  Benedetti  laid 
before  the  King  of  Prussia  at  Ems  the  demand  of 
France  for  guarantees.  On  the  14th  Earl  Gran- 
ville woke  from  his  deep  dream  of  peace  and  strove 
to  bring  France  and  Prussia  to  terms.     On  the 


Revolution  in  Journalism  231 

15th  the  Emperor  declared  war;  the  Chamber 
approving  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 

There  are  in  journalism  two  ways  of  dealing 
with  a  war  crisis  of  this  kind.  One  way  is  to 
send  into  the  field  everybody  you  can  lay  hands 
on  to  cover,  tant  hien  qiie  mal,  as  many  points  as 
possible,  and  so  take  your  chance  of  what  may 
turn  up.  The  other  is  to  choose  the  best  two  men 
available  and  send  one  to  the  headquarters  of 
each  army.  I  preferred  the  latter,  perhaps  because 
there  was  a  difficulty  in  finding  good  men,  and 
there  were  but  two  from  whom  I  expected  much 
good.  These  were  Mr.  Holt  White,  an  English- 
man, and  M.  Mejanel,  a  Frenchman.  Mr.  White 
was  ordered  to  join  the  Prussians  and  M.  Mejanel 
to  accompany  his  own  countrymen.  The  same 
instructions  were  given  to  both ;  very  simple  but  I 
believe  at  that  time  quite  novel  in  England.  Each 
was  to  find  his  way  to  the  front,  or  wherever  a 
battle  was  most  likely  to  be  fought.  They  were 
to  telegraph  to  London  as  fully  as  possible  all 
accounts  of  preliminary  engagements.  If  they 
had  the  good  luck  to  witness  an  important  battle 
they  were  not  to  telegraph,  but,  unless  for  some 
very  peremptory  reason,  to  start  at  once  for 
London,  writing  their  accounts  on  the  way  or  on 
arrival.  If  they  could  telegraph  a  summary  first, 
so  much  the  better;  but  there  must  be  no  delay. 
The  essential  thing  was  to  arrive  in  London  at  the 
earliest  moment.  They  were  to  provide  before- 
hand for  a  substitute,  or  more  than  one,  who  would 
take  up  their  work  during  their  absence. 


232  Anglo-American  Memories 

These  instructions  were  based  on  the  impro- 
bability that  any  single  correspondent  could  antici- 
pate any  very  important  news  which  Governments, 
the  news  agencies,  and  the  Rothschilds  would  all 
three  endeavour  to  send  first.  I  reverse  the  order 
in  which  a  Minister  once  said  to  me  news  of  war  or 
of  high  politics  usually  arrived.  Such  news,  he 
said,  comes  to  the  Rothschilds  first,  next  to  the 
Press,  and  to  the  Government  last  of  all.  Besides, 
the  mere  fact  never  contents  the  public.  It  wants 
the  full  story.  There  was  never  much  chance  of 
sending  the  full  story  by  wire  from  the  battlefield 
or  from  any  town  hard  by;  nor,  indeed,  from  any 
capital;  even  from  a  neutral  capital.  Only  when 
once  in  London  was  a  correspondent  master  of 
the  situation. 

Mr.  Holt  White  carried  out  his  instructions  with 
an  energy,  a  courage,  an  intelligence  to  which  no 
tribute  can  be  too  high.  In  the  first  instance  he 
witnessed  the  battle — not  an  important  one 
except  that  it  was  the  first — of  Spicheren,  and 
wired  a  column  or  so  to  London.  It  was,  I  be- 
lieve, the  first  battle  story  of  any  length  ever  sent 
by  wire  from  the  Continent  to  London.  English 
journalism,  as  I  said  above,  had  not  yet  regarded 
the  telegraph  as  anything  but  a  means  of  transmit- 
ting results.  The  full  account  was  to  come  by 
mail.  I  had  told  Mr.  Robinson  I  meant  to  use 
the  telegraph  in  this  new  way,  but  he  was  not 
ready  to  believe  it  could  be  done.  So  when  I 
carried  Mr.  White's  account  to  The  Daily  News 
office,  after  cabling  a  rewritten  copy  to  New  York, 


Revolution  in  Journalism  233 

I  took  with  me  the  original  telegraph  forms  as 
well  as  the  second  copy.  The  dispatch  as  tele- 
graphed by  Mr.  White  was  slightly  condensed, 
had  been  carelessly  handled,  and  was  not  in  good 
shape  for  the  printers.  I  handed  my  copy  to  Mr. 
Robinson.  He  looked  at  it  with  undisguised 
suspicion. 

"It  is  your  handwriting, "  he  said. 

I  admitted  that. 

"And  the  battle  was  fought  only  yesterday." 

"Yes." 

"It  could  not  have  come  by  post." 

"No." 

"Well,  how  then?" 

"By  wire." 

"A  dispatch  of  that  length!     It  is  unheard  of." 

But  I  thought  this  had  gone  far  enough  and 
showed  him  the  telegraph  forms.     Still  he  said: 

"Do  you  expect  me  to  print  this  to-morrow  in 
The  Daily  News?'' 

"  Print  it  or  not  as  you  choose.  It  will  certainly 
appear  in  The  Tribune.  I  have  done  as  I  agreed  in 
bringing  you  the  dispatch.  You,  of  course,  will 
do  as  you  think  best  about  publishing  it." 

I  repeat  this  because  it  indicates  better  than 
I  could  otherwise  the  journalistic  state  of  mind 
at  that  time  in  respect  of  Continental  telegrams. 
Mr.  Robinson  was  at  the  head  of  his  profession, 
yet  this  was  his  reception,  of  this  piece  of  news. 
In  the  end  Mr.  Frank  Hill,  the  editor,  was  called 
into  consultation.  He  had  no  hesitation  and,  as 
before,    finally   brought  his  colleague  to   reason. 


234  Anglo-American  Memories 

The  telegram  duly  appeared  next  morning  in 
The  Daily  News,  heralded  by  a  leading  article  in 
which  the  telegram  was  rewritten,  its  importance 
pointed  out,  the  celerity  of  its  dispatch  and  arrival 
dwelt  on,  and  so  the  readers  of  The  Daily  News 
had  every  opportunity  to  admire  the  enterprise 
of  that  journal. 

This  was  very  far  from  being  Mr.  Holt  White's 
most  brilliant  exploit,  but  it  was  his  first.  He 
had  not  the  luck  to  see  the  battle  of  Worth,  the 
earliest  of  the  grave  disasters  of  the  French.  No 
journalist  had.  That  great  engagement  and  the 
defeat  of  Marshal  MacMahon  were  foreseen  by 
nobody,  the  Germans  themselves  excepted,  and 
there  exists  no  account  of  the  battle  in  the  news- 
papers of  the  day,  save  such  as  came  by  hearsay; 
or,  much  later,  the  official  reports.  But  when 
the  bare  facts  were  known  they  were  thought 
prophetic,  and  the  military  critics  of  Pall  Mall 
and  Whitehall  said  gravely:  "This  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  endo" 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

HOLT     white's     story    OF     SEDAN     AND    HOW     IT 
REACHED  THE  NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE 

I  PASS  over  the  interval  between  Worth  and 
Sedan,  crowded  as  it  was  with  events,  stopping 
only  to  remark  that  The  Tribune  was  indebted  to 
an  American  writer  on  The  Daily  News  for  its 
account  of  Gravelotte,  but  not  to  The  Daily  News 
except  for  the  opportunity  of  buying  that  account, 
at  a  high  price.  There  was  an  entangling  alliance 
which  forbade  The  Daily  News  to  hand  it  over  to 
The  Tribune,  but  did  not  prevent  the  correspon- 
dent of  that  paper  from  selling  it.  I  am  not  sure 
whether  the  name  of  the  writer  is  known,  but  in 
the  circumstances  it  is  not  for  me  to  disclose  it. 
The  narrative  was,  of  course,  cabled  to  The  Tri- 
bune at  once.  Gravelotte  was  fought  on  the  1 8th 
of  August.  The  account  of  the  battle  reached 
New  York,  I  think,  on  the  21st.  It  was,  at  any 
rate,  the  first,  and  for  some  time  the  only,  narra- 
tive published.  The  defeated  French  called  it  the 
battle  of  Rezonville,  and  under  that  name  was 
this  description  first  printed.  From  a  military 
point  of  view  the  account  had  no  great  value, 
but  it  was  picturesquely  written  and   in  those 

235 


236  AnQ^lo-American  Memories 


difficult  days  anything  from  the  field  was  eagerly 
read. 

Greater  days  were  at  hand.  The  battle  of 
Sedan  was  fought  on  Thursday,  September  ist, 
1870,  followed  by  the  surrender  of  the  town,  the 
army,  and  the  Emperor  Napoleon  on  the  day 
following.  The  news  of  the  catastrophe  was  not 
known  in  London  till  Saturday  morning  at  ten 
o'clock,  and  then  only  in  the  briefest  form;  the 
mere  fact  and  not  much  more ;  through  the  general 
Press  agency;  I  suppose  Renter's.  Mr.  Robinson 
wired  me  and  I  went  to  The  Daily  News  office. 
But  the  bare  news  was  of  no  great  use  for  my 
purposes.  I  went  back  to  The  Tribune  office  in 
Pall  Mall  wondering  what  I  was  to  do,  and  still 
more  what  The  Tribune  correspondents  in  the 
field  were  doing.  I  had  not  long  to  wait.  A  dis- 
patch arrived  from  Mr.  Holt  White  saying  he 
should  be  in  London  that  afternoon,  and  at  five 
o'clock  he  walked  into  the  ol  ice. 

Seldom  have  I  been  so  glad  to  see  any  man's 
face  as  I  was  to  see  his,  but  there  was  hardly  so 
much  as  a  greeting  between  us.     I  asked  first: 

"Is  your  dispatch  ready?" 

"Not  a  word  of  it  written. " 

"Will  you  sit  down  at  once  and  begin?" 

"I  cannot.  I  am  dead  tired,  and  have  had  no 
food  since  daybreak.  I  must  eat  and  sleep  before 
I  can  write. " 

He  looked  it;  a  mere  wreck  of  a  correspondent, 
haggard,  ragged,  dirty,  incapable  of  the  effort 
which  nevertheless  had  to  be  made.     It  was  no 


Holt  White's  Story  of  Sedan  237 

time  to  consider  anybody's  feelings.  A  continent 
was  waiting  for  the  news  locked  up  in  that  one 
man's  brain,  and  somehow  or  other  the  lock  must 
be  forced,  the  news  told,  and  the  waiting  continent 
supplied  with  what  it  wanted.  Incidentally,  it 
was  such  an  opportunity  for  The  Tribune  as 
seldom  had  come  to  any  newspaper.  It  was 
necessary  to  use  a  little  authority.  I  said  to 
Mr.  Holt  White: 

"You  shall  have  something  to  eat,  but  sleep 
you  cannot  till  you  have  done  your  dispatch. 
That  must  be  in  New  York  to-morrow  morning." 

So  we  went  over  to  the  Pall  Mall  Restaurant, 
which  was  then  in  the  building  now  replaced  by 
the  Oceanic  House,  the  headquarters  of  the  In- 
ternational Marine  Navigation  Company;  if  that 
be  its  name.  Food  and  drink  refreshed  him. 
We  were  back  in  The  Tribune  office  not  long  after 
six  and  work  began. 

Mr.  Holt  White  wrote  one  of  the  worst  hands 
ever  seen,  so  I  said  to  him  I  would  copy  as  he 
wrote  and  my  copy  would  go  to  the  cable  opera- 
tors. Bad  or  good,  mine  was  a  hand  they  were 
familiar  with.  We  sat  opposite  each  other  at  ,the 
same  table,  and  I  copied  sheet  by  sheet  till  there 
was  enough  to  give  the  cable  a  start,  then  took  it 
to  the  Anglo-American  cable  office  in  Telegraph 
Street.  I  went  myself  for  two  reasons:  first  to 
make  sure  it  was  delivered,  and  second  to  make 
sure  it  went  without  interruption.  The  latter, 
indeed,  was.  a  point  of  which  it  was  impossible, 
under  the  Weaver  regime,  to  make  sure.     But  I 


238  Anglo-American  Memories 

could  at  least  hand  in  the  message  over  the  counter. 
Many  a  message  have  I  trusted  myself  and  no- 
body else  with,  and  many  a  letter  have  I  posted 
with  my  own  hands;  everything,  in  fact,  of  im- 
portance ever  since  I  had  anything  to  do  with 
journalism.  It  is  often  inconvenient  but  I  have 
found  it  a  good  rule. 

I  dwell  on  these  details.  Few  things  in  American 
journalism,  the  Civil  War  excepted,  have  made 
more  stir  than  this  exploit  of  Mr.  Holt  White. 
But  the  full  credit  which  belongs  to  him  he  has 
never  had.  Consider  what  he  had  done.  He  had 
been  all  through  the  battle;  he  had  been  in  the 
saddle  all  day  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning 
till  nightfall.  The  battle  over,  he  started  for 
London.  He  rode  with  his  life  in  his  hand.  He 
had  to  pass  the  lines  of  three  armies,  the  Prussians 
who  refused  him  a  permit,  the  French  outposts  to 
the  north  of  Sedan,  and  the  Belgians,  who  made  a 
pretence  of  guarding  their  frontier  and  the  neutral- 
ity of  Belgian  territory  He  could  not  explain 
how  he  managed  it.  When  he  reached  Brussels 
he  thought  it  might  be  possible  to  write  there  and 
to  wire  his  account  from  Brussels  to  London. 
But  at  the  chief  telegraph  office  in  Brussels  the 
official  in  charge  told  him  flatly  he  would  accept 
no  dispatch  relating  to  the  war.  The  issue  of  the 
battle  was  unknown  in  Brussels.  Anything  handed 
in  for  transmission  to  London  or  elsewhere  would 
be  submitted  first  of  all  to  the  censor;  and  in 
Brussels,  as  elsewhere,  the  censorship  is  a  heart- 
rending business;  delay  inevitable;  and  there  was 


Holt  White's  Story  of  Sedan  239 

no  time  for  delay.  It  was,  as  I  explained  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  one  reason  why  all  correspondents 
were  directed  to  come  straight  to  London  where 
the  censorship  did  not  exist.  Mr.  Holt  White  was 
soon  satisfied  that  it  was  useless  to  try  to  telegraph 
from  Brussels,  and  he  came  on  by  train  to  Calais, 
missed  the  Calais  boat,  caught  a  later  one,  which 
did  not  connect  with  the  Dover-London  service, 
and,  once  at  Dover,  chartered  a  special  train  to 
London  and  so  at  last  arrived. 

I  asked  him  if  any  other  correspondent  had 
come  with  him.  He  thought  not ;  at  any  rate,  no 
one  whom  he  knew  as  correspondent  and,  of  course, 
no  one  came  by  the  special  train.  Still,  there  was 
no  certainty.  It  was  already  two  days  since  the 
sun  had  gone  down  on  the  beaten  French  in  Sedan. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  except  to  hurry  on  the 
dispatch  to  New  York. 

With  indomitable  courage  White  wrote  on. 
After  a  time  I  asked  him  if  he  would  rest  a 
little  before  finishing. 

"No,"  he  said,  "if  I  stop  I  shall  go  to  sleep, 
and  if  I  go  to  sleep  I  shall  not  wake." 

The  man's  pluck  was  a  splendid  thing  to  see. 
His  answer  was  like  the  answer  of  an  Atlantic 
captain  who,  in  the  old  days  when  there  was  no 
telephone  and  designers  had  not  learned  how  to 
make  the  captain's  cabin  the  nerve  centre  of  the 
ship,  had  been  for  three  days  and  nights  on  the 
bridge.  I  asked  him  how  he  lived  through  it. 
He  said  it  was  rather  trying  to  the  knees. 

"But  did  you  never  sit  down?" 


240  Anglo-American  Memories 

"Oh,  if  I  had  sat  down  I  should  have  gone  to 
sleep." 

There  are  heroisms  of  that  kind  in  the  routine 
of  life,  professional  and  other,  and  even  in  the 
profession  of  journalism  of  which  the  newspaper 
reader  in  the  morning  over  his  coffee  and  rolls 
never  thinks.  But  they  are  real  and  without  them, 
and  without  the  loyalty  and  devotion  of  such  men, 
there  might  sometimes  be  nothing  for  the  man 
with  his  coffee  and  rolls  to  read. 

White  sat  at  his  table  till  midnight  and  later. 
It  was  nearer  two  o'clock  than  one  before  the 
last  of  his  message  was  filed  in  Telegraph  Street. 
Whether  by  Mr.  Weaver's  intervention  or  not  I 
cannot  say,  but  there  was  a  delay  on  the  wires. 
The  delay,  I  was  afterwards  told,  was  on  the 
Newfoundland  land  lines  to  New  York.  It  may 
be  so.  It  was  a  message  six  columns  long  and 
not  aU  of  it  appeared  in  The  Tribune  that  next 
Sunday  morning  though  all  of  it  had  been  filed 
in  ample  time;  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  in 
London  being  only  nine  o'clock  of  the  evening 
before  in  New  York. 

No  matter.  It  was  a  clear,  coherent,  vivid 
battle  story,  and  it  was  the  only  one.  No  morn- 
ing paper  in  London  had  any  account  of  the  battle 
till  the  Tuesday  following;  and  all  New  York 
accounts.  The  Tribtme  excepted,  were  from  the 
London  Press  or  Press  agencies.  It  is  not  worth 
while  to  recall  the  comments  of  The  Tribimes 
rivals.  They  were  angry,  naturally  enough,  and 
they  resorted  to  conjectures  which  might  as  well 


Holt  White's  Story  of  Sedan         241 

have  been  left  unexpressed.  It  is  enough  to 
explain  further  that  Mr.  Holt  White's  narrative 
did  not  appear  in  The  Daily  News  because  he  had 
an  agreement  with  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  Part 
of  this  account,  therefore,  was  printed  in  an 
abridged  form  in  The  Pall  Mall  of  Monday,  for 
which  it  was  written  separately.  The  Pall  Mall 
is  an  evening  paper,  and  when  that  was  cabled  to 
New  York  and  found  to  be  obviously  from  the 
same  source  as  The  Tribune's  the  guesses  grew 
wild.  But  the  plain  truth  is  now  told,  and  is 
simple  enough. 

Mr.  Holt  White  was  a  journalist  but  not  at  that 
time  a  journalist  of  any  exceptional  reputation 
or  position.  This,  I  think,  was  the  first  very 
considerable  thing  he  had  done.  I  am  sorry  to 
have  to  add  that  it  was  also  the  last.  He  was  a 
man  to  whom,  after  such  an  achievement  as  this, 
a  long  repose  became  necessary.  He  rejoined  the 
Prussian  headquarters,  spent  the  winter  at  Ver- 
sailles, and  during  all  those  months  did  practically 
nothing.  Of  his  great  gifts  and  capacities  he  made 
no  further  use,  even  down  to  the  end  of  his  life, 
and  the  end  came  early.  But  he  is  entitled  to  be 
remembered  as  a  man  who  at  one  supreme  moment 
accomplished  one  of  the  most  brilliant  exploits  in 
the  history  of  journalism.  Let  us  judge  him  by 
his  best,  and,  so  judged,  his  name  must  take  its 
place  with  those  of  Russell,  McGahan,  Forbes, 
Steevens,  and  others  of  that  rank  if  there  are  any 
others. 

One  more  remark,  to  remind  3^ou  how  alien  from 


242  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  mind  of  the  British  journalist  at  that  time  was 
the  free  use  of  the  telegraph,  which  in  America 
had  become  a  thing  of  every  day.  When  White  sat 
down  to  write  he  said  to  me:  "I  suppose  I  am  to 
condense  as  much  as  possible?" 

"No,  write  fully." 

"But  it  is  going  by  cable. " 

"Yes." 

"It  will  be  some  columns  long." 

"The  longer  the  better." 

He  thought  a  little,  then  said: 

"I  still  don't  quite  understand." 

"Then  please  put  the  cable  out  of  your  mind, 
and  write  exactly  as  if  you  were  writing  for  a  Lon- 
don paper  and  the  printer's  devil  waiting. "  And 
he  did. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

GREAT  EXAMPLES  OF  WAR  CORRESPONDENCE 

DUT  Sedan  from  the  Prussian  point  of  view 
■■— '  was  one  thing ;  from  the  French  it  might  be, 
and  must  be,  quite  another.  M.  Mejanel,  had 
things  gone  otherwise,  might  have  been  expected  to 
give  us  the  French  version,  but  since  he  was  with 
the  French  headquarters  in  Sedan  he  was  pre- 
sumably a  prisoner  of  war,  and  nothing  was  to  be 
hoped  for  from  him.  Mr.  Holt  White,  fresh  from 
the  field,  thought  there  was  little  or  no  chance. 
No  one  except  Mr.  White  had  got  through  from 
either  army.  The  English  papers  of  Monday 
morning  were  a  blank  except  for  a  few  rather 
ragged  telegrams.  Mr.  Robinson  at  The  Daily 
News,  had  nothing.  There  was  a  lull.  I  am 
speaking  of  war  news  proper,  for  there  was,  of 
course,  the  one  great  event  of  Saturday  in  Paris, 
and  there  was  no  certainty  whence  the  next  flash 
of  light,  or  lightning,  would  come.  Sedan  had 
been  fought  on  Thursday,  and  it  was  now  Monday 
afternoon. 

While  I  sat  in  The  Tribune  office  in  Pall  Mall 
brooding  on  these  difficulties  and  almost  despair- 
ing of  further  good  fortune  the  door  opened, 
and  in  walked  Mejanel.     He  had  not  telegraphed. 

243 


244  Anglo-American  Memories 

He  had  a  Gallic  indifference  to  time  and  to  the 
technique  of  journalism.  He  had  just  come  as 
soon  as  he  could.  An  angel  from  heaven  would 
have  been  less  welcome. 

"Were  you  in  Sedan  during  the  battle?" 

"Yes,  and  outside  with  the  army." 

"Were  you  taken  prisoner?" 

"Yes." 

"You  were  released?" 

"Well,  I  forget  whether  I  was  released  or 
whether  I  escaped." 

To  escape  meant  that  he  had  taken  his  chance 
of  being  shot  by  a  Prussian  sentry,  and  also  of 
being  rearrested  and  tried  by  court  martial  should 
he  fall  again  into  Prussian  hands.  Released, 
therefore,  seemed  the  better  word  of  the  two. 

"Have  you  written  your  account?" 

"No.  I  had  no  means  of  writing  while  a 
prisoner,  and  I  have  since  been  doing  my  best 
to  get  to  London." 

As  in  White's  case,  there  was  time  enough. 
Mejanel  had  an  English  side  to  him — his  mother 
was  English — and  that  half  of  him  was  imper- 
turbable. Neither  the  danger  he  had  passed  nor 
the  task  that  lay  before  him,  all  inexperienced  as 
he  was,  shook  his  nerves.  He  was  quite  ready  to 
sit  down  and  write  at  once.  As  in  White's  case, 
I  copied  sheet  by  sheet.  Mejanel's  English  was 
here  and  there  at  fault  but  was,  on  the  whole, 
good.  What  was  more  important,  his  memory 
was  precise;  he  knew  how  to  tell  his  story  clearly, 
and  he  gave  us  a  picture  of   the  battle-horrors 


Examples  of  War  Correspondence     245 

from  within  the  beleaguered  town  or  from  within 
the  French  defence,  which  he  made  the  reader 
see  as  he  himself  had  seen  them.  He  wrote  on 
till  he  had  filled  four  columns,  modestly  wonder- 
ing as  he  wrote  whether  he  was  not  too  diffuse; 
wondering  that  it  should  be  thought  worth 
cabling ;  wondering  whether  his  English  was  good 
enough;  and  wondering  whether  the  military  part 
of  it  was  not  all  nonsense.  Reassured  on  all  these 
points,  he  wrote  fluently  and  joyfully,  at  midnight 
laying  down  his  pen  with  the  remark:  '' EnfiUj 
fai  vide  mon  sac. " 

M.  Mejanel's  dispatch  appeared  in  The  Tribune 
complete  on  Tuesday  morning.  Neither  Mr. 
Weaver  nor  the  Newfoundland  lines  were  out  of 
order  this  time.  The  Tribune  had,  therefore, 
within  less  than  three  days  of  the  first  coming  of 
the  news  of  the  battle  of  Sedan,  given  to  the 
American  public  complete  accounts — ten  columns 
altogether — of  the  battle  from  the  Prussian 
side  and  from  the  French  side;  a  unique 
performance. 

Nor  was  this  all.  The  revolution  in  Paris  and 
the  declaration  of  the  Republic,  September  4th, 
were  dealt  with  not  less  fully,  and  of  course  by 
cable.  During  four  days  the  number  of  words 
cabled  was  a  little  over  sixteen  thousand,  at  a 
cost  of  as  many  dollars.  If  we  never  rose  again 
to  quite  those  heights  it  was  because  never  again 
was  there  such  a  quick  sequence  of  great  events. 
But  for  a  long  time  the  daily  average  was  high, 
and  not  long  after  this  The  Daily  News  service 


246  Anglo-American  Memories 

became  efficient,  and,  as  I  have  said  before,  The 
Tribune  in  the  end  profited  by  it. 

Before,  however,  the  full  advantage  of  that 
accrued  came  the  surrender  of  Metz,  October  27th, 
and  the  remarkable  narrative,  including  a  visit 
to  Metz,  published  simultaneously  by  The  Daily 
News  and  The  Tribune.  It  was  supposed  in 
London  that  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes  was  the  author 
of  this  narrative,  and  it  was  reckoned  among  his 
best  performances.  The  Daily  News  never  thought 
it  worth  while  to  state  the  truth ;  nor  was  it  bound 
to  make  any  statement.  The  real  author  was  Mr. 
Gustav  Miiller,  a  correspondent  in  the  employ- 
ment of  The  Tribune.  As  in  the  other  cases  I  have 
described,  Mr.  Gustav  Miiller  came  to  London  and 
wrote  his  account  in  The  Tribune  office.  It  was 
cabled  forthwith  to  New  York,  and  a  copy  handed 
to  The  Daily  News.  It  was  the  first  to  be  published 
in  London,  and  the  first  to  be  published  in  New 
York.  So  far  as  London  is  concerned,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  The  Times  on  the  following  morning 
copied  it  from  The  Daily  News,  crediting  it  to 
The  Daily  News,  with  a  deserved  compliment,  and 
saying: 

"We  congratulate  our  contemporary  on  the 
energy  and  enterprise  of  its  correspondent." 

Still,  Mr.  Robinson  did  not  think  it  needful  to 
explain  that  it  was  in  fact  a  Tribu?ie  dispatch,  and 
that  it  was  a  Tribune  correspondent  who  had 
wrung  from  The  Times  this  testimony. 

The  tale  has  a  tragic  end.  For  a  long  time  I 
thought  it  a  tragedy  of  death.     I  sent  Mr.  Gustav 


Examples  of  War  Correspondence     247 

Miiller  back  to  the  field  at  once,  with  a  large  sum 
of  money.  I  never  heard  from  him  again.  In- 
quiries in  every  possible  quarter  brought  no 
tidings  of  him.  It  seemed  plain  that  he  had  fallen 
in  battle  or  had  been  murdered  and  robbed  by 
some  of  the  bands  that  hang  on  the  outskirts  of 
every  army.  Some  years  after  I  told  the  whole 
story  in  Harper's  Magazine,  leaving  the  mystery 
unexplained  otherwise  than  by  conjecture.  When, 
lo!  it  appeared  that  Mr.  Gustav  Muller  had  not 
fallen  by  a  French  bullet  or  a  brigand's  knife, 
but  was  alive  in  New  York  and  ready  to  submit 
to  an  interview.  If  he  were  truly  reported,  he 
seemed  to  think  his  conduct  in  no  need  of  defence. 
He  had  changed  his  mind,  and  instead  of  returning 
to  the  field  had  gone  home.  Why  he  never  wrote 
to  me  or  communicated  in  any  way  with  The 
Tribune  he  omitted  to  say. 

As  I  have  stripped  one  leaf  from  Mr.  Forbes' s 
laurels,  I  will  add  that  two  of  the  most  brilliant 
news  exploits  in  all  the  history  of  war  journalism 
are  to  be  credited  to  him.  One  was  his  night  ride 
of  no  miles  alone  through  a  hostile  country,  after 
the  British  victory  of  Ulundi,  July  4th,  1879. 
Lord  Chelmsford,  commanding  the  British  forces,, 
had  refused  Forbes  leave  to  start  and  given  orders 
for  his  arrest.  He  risked  the  British  bullets  and 
the  Zulu  assegais,  and  got  through.  The  other 
was  at  the  Shipka  Pass,  in  August,  1877.  It  was 
the  crisis  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War.  General 
Gourko  was  holding  the  Pass.  Suleiman  Pacha 
day  after  day  was  flinging  his  whole  force  against 


248  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  Russian  entrenchments.  The  world  was  wait- 
ing. No  news  came.  The  Russians  and  Turks 
were  not  people  who  concerned  themselves  much 
about  public  opinion.  Forbes  was  at  Bucharest. 
Tired  of  expecting  messages  from  the  scene,  he 
rode  to  the  Pass,  made  his  way  through  the  Turks 
and  into  the  Russian  lines,  stayed  in  the  trenches 
till  he  had  satisfied  himself — and  he  was  a  com- 
petent judge — that  Suleiman's  effort  was  spent 
and  that  Gourko  could  hold  his  own,  and  then 
made  his  way  out  again,  hoping  to  reach  Bucharest 
in  time  for  a  dispatch  that  night  to  The  Daily 
News.  At  or  near  Tirnova  he  was  stopped  by  the 
Russians  and  taken  before  the  Czar. 

The  Czar,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  was  without 
news.  He  had  sent  one  aide-de-camp  after  another 
to  the  Pass;  not  one  had  returned.  Forbes  used 
to  say  that  the  Czar  treated  him  very  well.  He 
asked  if  it  was  true  that  Forbes  had  been  with 
General  Gourko,  and,  when  told  it  was,  desired 
that  the  exact  situation  should  be  explained  to 
him.  Forbes  set  it  forth  with  that  military  clear- 
ness and  precision  which  made  his  work  in  the 
field  invaluable.  The  Czar  asked  him  if  he  could 
draw  a  plan.  He  drew  it.  All  sorts  of  questions 
were  put  to  him.  He  answered  all.  He  was  asked 
for  his  opinion. 

"I  told  His  Imperial  Majesty  that  I  had  been 
a  soldier,  that  I  had  had  much  experience  of 
battles  as  a  correspondent,  and  that  I  had  no 
doubt  General  Gourko  would  hold  the  Pass." 

The  interview  lasted  an  hour  or  more. 


Examples  of  War  Correspondence     249 

"At  the  end  I  besought  His  Majesty's  permis- 
sion to  continue  my  journey,  saying  I  thought 
nothing  was  known  in  Europe,  and  that  it  was 
for  the  interest  of  Russia  that  the  facts  which  I 
had  had  the  honour  to  lay  before  His  Impe- 
rial Majesty  should  be  made  public.  The 
Czar  thanked  me  for  the  information  I  had 
given,  declared  himself  convinced  it  was  true 
and  my  judgment  well  founded,  and  dismissed 
me." 

So  Forbes  rode  on,  arriving  at  Bucharest,  the 
first  point  from  which  it  was  possible  to  tele- 
graph, at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening.  It  was 
Forbes  himself  who  told  me  the  story: 

"I  had  been  in  the  saddle  or  in  the  trenches  and 
under  fire  for  three  days  and  nights,  without  sleep 
and  with  little  food.  When  I  walked  into  the 
hotel  at  Bucharest  I  was  a  beaten  man.  I  felt 
as  if  I  could  not  keep  awake  or  sit  in  my  chair, 
much  less  write.  Yet  it  was  an  opportunity  which 
does  not  come  twice  in  a  man's  life.  I  had,  and 
nobody  else  had,  the  news  for  which  all  Europe 
was  hungering;  the  most  momentous  news  since 
Sedan;  but  not  one  word  written,  and  not  an 
ounce  of  strength  left." 

"Well,  what  did  you  do?" 

The  answer  was  curious  indeed. 

"I  called  the  waiter  and  told  him  to  bring  me 
a  pint  of  champagne,  unopened.  I  uncorked  it, 
put  the  neck  of  the  bottle  into  my  mouth  before 
the  gas  had  time  to  escape,  and  drank  the  whole 
of  the  wine.     Then  I  sat  up  and  wrote  the  four 


250  Anglo-American  Memories 

columns  which  appeared  next  morning  in  The 
Daily  News.'" 

I  remember  that  narrative  well.  There  was  not 
in  it  from  beginning  to  end  a  trace  of  fatigue  or 
confusion.  It  was  a  bulletin  of  war,  written  with 
masterly  ease,  with  the  most  admirable  freshness 
and  force.  Nothing  better  of  the  kind  was  ever 
done.  It  rang  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the 
other,  and  across  the  Atlantic.  The  Hour  and 
the  Man  in  this  case  had  come  together,  and  if 
Forbes  had  done  nothing  else  this  would  entitle 
him  to  the  immortality  which  is  his. 

All  the  same,  the  pint  of  champagne  was  a 
hazardous  experiment.  Forbes  knew  it  but,  as 
he  said,  it  was  that  or  nothing.  The  next  man 
who  tries  it  ought  to  be  very  sure  that  he  has 
both  the  intellectual  elasticity  Forbes  had,  and 
his  physique. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

A  PARENTHESIS 

TO  what  I  have  said  of  journalism  I  need  not 
add  much.  I  remained  in  London  as  the 
representative  of  The  New  York  Tribune,  and  in 
charge  of  its  European  affairs  from  1867  to  1895; 
returning  then  to  New  York  and  Washington  for 
The  Times,  till  1905. 

When  The  Tribune  began  publishing  a  Sunday 
edition,  one  other  innovation  upon  the  established 
practice  followed.  I  sent  each  week,  by  cable,  a 
column  containing  a  summary  view  of  what  seemed 
most  important  during  the  week.  It  was  not  a 
summary  of  news  and  it  was  not  a  leading  article, 
but  a  compromise  between  the  two.  It  was,  at 
any  rate,  the  first  of  its  kind,  and  I  was  allowed 
to  put  it  in  such  shape  as  I  thought  best.  Since 
then,  the  American  demand  for  what  are  called 
"Sunday  cables"  has  grown,  the  despatches  to  all 
the  great  journals  of  the  United  States  have 
increased  in  number,  in  length,  in  variety,  and  in 
daring.  All  I  claim  for  mine  is  that  it  was  the 
first.  I  do  not  know  whether  any  work  in 
journalism  has  in  it  the  elements  of  permanency. 
Probably  not.     Journalism  is  an  expression  of  the 

251 


252  Anglo-American  Memories 

governing  forces  of  the  day,  and  day  by  day 
changes  as  the  forces  change  and  the  days  change. 
But  should  a  history  of  international  journalism 
be  written,  the  historian  will  perhaps  remember 
that  as  agent  of  The  Tribune  I  set  up  in  London 
that  European  news-bureau  which  all  other  great 
American  journals  after  some  years  copied;  that  I 
was  in  charge  of  it  during  the  Franco-German 
War;  and  that  the  success  of  The  Tribune  during 
that  war  was  due  to  the  system  already  described, 
which  I  had  established  three  years  before. 

The  years  that  follow  are  full  of  miscellaneous 
interests.  The  Memories,  some  of  which  are  re- 
printed in  this  volume,  are  not  primarily  historical, 
though  I  hope  they  are  accurate.  They  are  im- 
pressions. They  cannot  be  presented  as  a  sequence, 
and  as  each  chapter,  or  group  of  chapters,  deals 
with  a  separate  subject,  I  republish  most  of  them 
in  the  order  in  which  they  were  written  and 
printed,  or  otherwise  as  may  seem  convenient. 
I  pass  now  to  an  incident  of  the  Irish  "War, "  and 
then  to  a  diplomatic  experiment  in  the  history  of 
those  long  contentious  relations  between  Canada 
and  the  United  States  which  have  so  often  im- 
perilled the  friendship  between  England  and  the 
United  States. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

"civil    WAR?"^ — INCIDENTS     IN     THE     'eIGHTIES^ — 
SIR  GEORGE  TREVELYAN — LORD  BARRYMORE 

TTHE  streets  of  London  were  red  one  day  in 
■^      November,  1909,  with  placards  proclaiming: 

"The  Lords  declare  Civil  War!" 

I  suppose  the  Radicals  thought  it  paid  to  force 
the  note.  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  was  their  band- 
master for  the  moment.  There  is  no  more  effect- 
ive political  rhetorician,  provided  you  accept 
that  fallacy  about  the  folly  of  the  people  against 
which  the  warning  of  Mr.  Lincoln  passes  un- 
heeded. 

But  there  was,  at  least  on  one  side,  a  state  of 
feeling  in  the  country  comparable  to  nothing  I 
can  remember  except  the  feeling  which  prevailed 
during  the  Home  Rule  crisis,  and  far  stronger  now 
than  then.  In  that  crisis  also  the  Lords  came  to 
the  rescue  of  the  Kingdom,  which  they  saved  from 
disintegration  and  ruin.  Ruin  for  the  moment  it 
would  have  been;  only  to  be  finally  averted  by 
the  reconquest  of  Ireland.  Even  to  the  spectator 
those  were  stirring  days.  England  and  Ireland 
from  1 88 1  onward  had  become  the  Wild  West. 
The  revolver  was  the  real  safeguard  of  personal 

253 


254  Anglo-American  Memories 

liberty.  I  don't  think  it  will  be  quite  like  that 
now,  but  it  does  seem  as  if  the  bitterness  of  con- 
tention and  the  personalities  of  politics  would  go 
further  now  than  then ;  perhaps  have  already  gone 
further. 

I  was  in  Ireland  for  a  fortnight  during  one  of 
the  worst  periods,  but  there  were  times  when 
London  was  as  disturbed  and  distressful  as  Ireland 
itself.  Those  were  years  of  dynamite  in  England, 
when,  as  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  said,  the  rail- 
way stations  were  flying  about  our  ears,  and  when 
London  Bridge  came  near  being  blown  up,  and 
when  Englishmen  in  high  place  were  targets. 
From  the  Prime  Minister  down  to  his  youngest 
colleague,  no  man  was  safe  without  a  guard  of 
detectives;  and  not  then.  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose 
courage  was  high,  shook  off  his  escort  whenever 
he  could.  Other  Ministers  paid  more  respect  to 
a  very  real  danger.  Sir  George  Trevelyan,  who 
was  appointed  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland  in  1882, 
submitted  sensibly  to  the  precautions  the  Home 
Office  and  Scotland  Yard  thought  needful.  One 
afternoon  I  met  Trevelyan  in  a  Bond  Street  shop. 
We  left  the  shop  together.  Two  quite  innocent- 
looking  men  were  outside  the  door.  "I  hope  you 
don't  mind,"  said  Trevelyan.  "I  am  obliged  to 
let  them  follow  me."  They  were  Scotland  Yard 
detectives.  As  we  walked  down  the  street  they 
were  within  earshot  all  the  way,  their  vigilance 
unrelaxing.  Whether  they  thought  their  ward 
in  greater  or  less  danger  because  I  was  with  him 
I  cannot  say.     We  parted  at  the  corner  of  Picca- 


"Civil  War?"  255 

dilly.  In  both  streets  the  throng  on  the  side- 
walk was  dense,  but  through  it  these  men  made 
their  way  without  violence,  without  haste,  but 
never  for  an  instant  allowing  themselves  to  be 
separated  from  the  Chief  Secretary  by  so  much 
as  an  arm's  length.  He  walked  in  peril  not  only 
real  but  imminent.  Two  days  before  his  appoint- 
ment as  Chief  Secretary  his  predecessor.  Lord 
Frederick  Cavendish,  and  Mr.  Burke,  permanent 
Under  Secretary,  had  been  murdered.  To  accept 
that  inheritance  of  probable  assassination  was 
a  gallant  act,  quite  characteristic  of  Sir  George 
Trevelyan.  But  I  do  not  imagine  that  he  or  his 
friends  ever  while  he  held  that  office  forgot  what 
had  happened  in  Phoenix  Park. 

Not  many  evenings  later  I  met  Sir  George 
Trevelyan*  at  dinner.  If  he  had  not  been  famous 
as  a  writer  and  Member  of  Parliament  and  Irish 
Secretary  and  much  else,  he  might  well  have  been 
famous  as  a  diner-out.  He  had  the  art  of  conver- 
sation. His  uncle's  influence  had  left  him,  in  this 
respect,  untouched.  Where  Macaulay  discoursed 
and  reeled  off  dreary  pages  of  encyclopcedic  know- 
ledge, Trevelyan  talked  lightly  and  well;  claiming 
no  monopoly,  preaching  no  sermon,  wearying  no 
company  too  well  bred  to  show  itself  bored.  He 
had  a  felicity  of  allusion  which  was  so  wholly  free 
from  pedantry  as  to  seem  almost  accidental. 
His  voice,  like  Browning's,  was  strident  and  his 
laugh  sometimes  boisterous;  but  this  was  in 
moments  of  excitement. 

On  this  particular  evening  there  was  something 


256  Anglo-American  Memories 

besides  his  inspiriting  talk  which  drew  the  atten- 
tion of  the  company.  So  long  as  the  ladies  were 
at  table  he  talked  with  his  wonted  energy.  When 
the  dining-room  door  had  closed  on  the  last  of 
these  departing  angels  Trevelyan  sank  into  his 
chair  with  a  sigh,  drew  a  revolver  from  the  breast 
pocket  of  his  coat,  laid  it  on  the  table  and  said  to 
his  host: 

"Pray  forgive  me,  but  if  you  knew  how  tired  I 
am  of  carrying  this  thing  about!" 

On  Sir  George  Trevelyan  as  on  others  the  Irish 
Secretaryship  left  its  mark.  A  year  of  office  aged 
him  as  if  it  were  ten.  He  came  out  worn  and 
grey:  not  yet  forty-five  years  old.  The  tragedy 
was  in  one  particular  a  tragi-comedy.  Half  his 
moustache  had  turned  white ;  the  other  half  black 
as  before.  And  I  suppose  it  shook  his  nerve  more 
or  less  and  was  perhaps  responsible  for  that  fickle- 
ness of  purpose  or  of  view  which  led  him  first  to 
oppose  and  then  to  adopt  Mr.  Gladstone's  policy 
of  Home  Rule. 

I  saw  one  side  of  the  Irish  question  during  a 
visit  to  Lord  Barrymore,  then  Mr.  Smith-Barry, 
and  his  beautiful  American  wife,  at  Fota  Island, 
near  Queenstown.  Mr.  William  O'Brien  had 
launched  shortly  before  this  his  New  Tipperary 
scheme,  of  which  one  main  object  was  to  ruin  Mr. 
Smith-Barry  who  owned  the  old  Tipperary.  Assas- 
sination was  then  only  a  political  incident  or 
instrument.  Mr.  Smith-Barry,  moreover,  was 
hated  not  only  as  a  landowner  but  for  having 
organized   the   one   efficient   defence  against   the 


"Civil  War?"  257 

spoliation  of  the  landlords  which  down  to  that 
time  had  been  discovered.  He  had  formed  a 
compan}^  and  raised  a  large  sum  of  money  among 
his  English  friends,  he  himself  being  the  largest 
contributor.  So  he  held  the  O'Brien  cohorts  at 
bay;  at  what  money  cost  and  at  what  personal 
risk  few  m.en  knew.  But  I  apprehend  that  but  for 
Mr.  Smith-Barry  the  Plan  of  Campaign  and  New 
Tipperary  would  have  succeeded  and  the  South  of 
Ireland  been  handed  over  to  the  Land  League. 

One  night  as  I  was  on  my  way  from  my  room 
to  the  drawing-room,  on  the  other  side  of  the  hall, 
I  saw  by  the  front  door  a  big  man  in  a  blue  cavalry 
cloak  and  cap,  who  had  just  entered.  He  was 
laying  aside  his  cloak  as  I  passed,  and  took 
out  of  their  holsters  first  one  and  then  another 
navy  revolver,  both  seven-shooters.  I  said,  too 
flippantly : 

"You  take  good  care  of  yourself." 

He  turned  on  me  sharply,  with  a  questioning 
look  of  keen  eyes  under  heavy  eyebrows: 

"Are  you  a  friend  of  Smith-Barry?" 

"I  should  hardly  be  staying  in  his  house  if  I 
were  not. " 

"Then  I  will  tell  you  how  you  can  best  prove 
your  friendship.     Get  him  to  carry  what  I  carry. " 

"Is  he  in  danger?" 

"Danger?  There  's  a  detective  at  this  moment 
behind  every  tree  about  the  house,  and  even  so 
we  don't  know  what  may  happen.  We  hope  he  is 
safe  here  at  home,  but  he  goes  about  unarmed, 
and  it  is  known  he  is  unarmed,  and  no  man  who 


258  Anglo-American  Memories 

does  that  can  be  sure  of  his  life.  We  have  tried 
our  best  to  make  him  take  care  of  himself.  He 
will  not.     Now  do  you  try. " 

This  sudden  outburst,  this  appeal,  this  flash  of 
light  upon  the  scene  were  all  impressive.  The 
big  man,  it  turned  out,  was  the  Chief  Constable 
of  the  county.  He  knew  whereof  he.  spoke.  I 
promised  to  do  what  I  could  and  I  talked  with 
Mr.  Smith-Barry. 

He  was  a  man  equally  remarkable  for  courage 
and  for  coolness,  but  in  matters  affecting  his  per- 
sonal safety  he  did  not  use  the  judgment  for  which 
in  other  matters  he  was  distinguished.  He  could 
not  be  persuaded  that  anybody  would  think  it 
worth  while  to  kill  him.  He  knew  well  enough 
that  the  shooting  of  landlords  had  become  a 
popular  pastime,  but  he  could  not,  or  would  not, 
understand  why  he  himself  should  be  shot. 

"I  am  on  good  terms  with  my  tenants;  my 
rents  are  fair  rents;  I  evict  nobody.  What  have 
they  to  gain  by  shooting  me?" 

But  it  was  not  from  his  own  tenants  that  trouble 
was  expected.  It  was  not  because  Mr.  Smith- 
Barry  was  not  a  good  landlord,  but  because  he  was 
the  leader  of  the  landlords  in  the  South  of  Ireland, 
and  the  most  formidable  opponent  of  the  League 
that  his  life  was  threatened.  "It  may  be  so," 
he  said:  "but  I  think  I  will  go  on  as  I  am." 
And  from  that  nobody  could  move  him. 

Now,  as  it  happened,  shortly  before  I  left 
London  I  had  met  one  of  the  chief  officials  in  the 
Home  Office  who  said  to  me: 


''Civil  War?"  259 

"You  are  going  to  Ireland." 

"Yes,  but  how  do  you  know?" 

"Never  mind  how  I  know.  What  I  want  to  say 
to  you  is,  Take  a  revolver  with  you." 

I  was  on  the  point  of  making  a  light  answer, 
but  stopped.  If  you  get  a  hint  of  that  kind  from 
a  man  who  rules  over  the  Criminal  Department  of 
the  Home  Office  and  the  police  generally,  you 
accept  it  and  do  as  you  are  told.  I  had  a  revolver 
with  me,  therefore,  and  when  the  time  came  to  go 
back  to  London  I  left  it  in  its  case  on  Mr.  Smith- 
Barry's  writing-table,  with  a  letter  asking  him  to 
accept  it  from  me  and  once  more  begging  him  to 
carry  it  if  only  that  it  might  be  known  that  he 
carried  it,  or  if  only  out  of  his  friendship  to  me. 
This  prevailed.  He  wrote  me  that  he  still  thought 
we  made  a  needless  fuss  about  it,  but  he  could  not 
refuse  the  gift  and  he  could  not  refuse  to  carry  it. 
No  letter  ever  pleased  me  more.  I  have  never 
again  seen  my  friend  the  Chief  Constable,  but  I 
have  never  forgotten  him,  and  I  think  of  him 
now  as  a  fine  impersonation  of  that  authority  of 
the  law  which,  in  those  turbulent  days,  he  asserted 
and  successfully  maintained  against  great  odds. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

SIR  WILFRID  LAURIER  AND  THE  ALASKA.  BOUNDARY 


'X'HE  name  of  Empire-builder  is  used  freely  of 
-■■  late,  perhaps  too  freely.  It  is  so  great  a 
name  that  it  ought  to  be  kept  for  the  great  men, 
for  the  real  builders  and  creators;  for  Clive,  for 
Rhodes,  and  their  like.  There  is  another  class, 
somewhat  more  numerous,  but  not  much,  who 
keep  together  the  great  Imperial  patrimony  which 
others  have  handed  down  to  them.  They  might 
perhaps  be  called  Wardens  of  Empire,  of  whom 
Sir  Wilfred  Laurier  may  stand  for  an  example. 

My  memories  of  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  go  back  to 
those  years  when  the  Alaska  boundary  dispute 
between  Canada  and  the  United  States  approached 
its  crisis.  Lord  Minto  was  then  Governor- General 
of  Canada;  Mr.  McKinley  was  President  of  the 
United  States;  Mr.  Hay  was  the  American  Secre- 
tary of  State.  There  was  strong  feeling  on  both 
sides.  It  appeared  later  that  it  was  stronger  in 
Canada  than  in  the  United  States,  but  in  both 
countries  there  was  hot  blood  and  in  both  the  con- 
troversy  turned   in   part   upon   gold.     We   were 

260 


The  Alaska  Boundary  261 

carrying  on  under  a  modus  vivendi;  a  state  of  things 
which  tended  to  tranquilHze  the  minds  of  men. 
But  the  modus  vivendi  did  not  cover  the  whole  of 
the  Alaskan  territory  then  in  dispute,  and  there 
was  anxiety  both  at  Washington  and  Ottawa. 

I  went  to  Ottawa  on  a  visit,  spent  a  week  at 
Government  House,  and  there  first  came  to  know 
Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier,  who  had  been  Prime  Minister 
of  the  Dominion  since  1896.  First  impressions 
are  best  and  I  set  down  my  first  impressions, 
though  they  do  not  much  differ  from  the  last,  and 
though,  in  one  way,  they  were  wholly  deceptive 
and  misleading. 

For  Sir  Wilfrid  came  so  softly  into  the  drawing- 
room  at  Government  House  that  you  would  never 
have  thought  him  a  leader  of  men.  He  had  some- 
thing of  the  ecclesiastic  about  him,  and  something 
of  the  diplomatist.  The  first  perhaps  suggested 
itself  because  he  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  to 
that  faith  all  my  Puritan  prejudices  were  alien. 
As  I  think  it  over,  I  know  of  no  fact  in  the  current 
history  of  the  British  Empire  more  significant  than 
the  fact  that  the  greatest  Dominion  of  this  great 
British  and  Protestant  Power  should  have  been 
governed  for  thirteen  years  by  a  Roman  Catholic 
and  a  Frenchman.  That  is  Catholicism  in  its 
broadest  sense,  and  not  in  the  sense  of  mere  loyalty 
to  a  Pope  and  to  a  particular  Church.  Taking 
the  population  of  Canada  as  something  over  six 
millions  to-day,  nearly  one  half  are  Roman  Catho- 
lics. The  other  half  are  implacable  Protestants. 
How  are  they  to  live  together  in  amity?     But  they 


262  Anglo-American  Memories 

do,  and  one  of  the  reasons  of  this  amity  is  Sir 
Wilfrid  Laurier.  If  he  were  a  leader  of  men  in  the 
military  sense,  or  as  Chatham  was  a  leader,  one  of 
two  things  would  have  happened.  Quebec  and 
Ontario  would  have  quarrelled,  or  Sir  Wilfrid 
would  have  ceased  to  be  Prime  Minister.  Booted 
and  spurred  and  in  the  saddle- — not  so  is  Canada 
to  be  ruled,  nor  are  the  conflicting  interests  and 
sentiments  of  the  eastern  and  western  sections  of 
the  great  Dominion  so  to  be  harmonized.  But 
the  smooth  subtlety  of  the  priest  and  the  suavity 
of  the  diplomatist  are  means  of  conciliation. 
Thus,  I  imagine,  has  Sir  Wilfrid  worked. 

Thus  does  he  present  himself  to  the  company  at 
Government  House.  He  glides  into  the  room. 
He  is  not  humble;  far  from  it,  but  his  is  perhaps 
the  pride  which  apes  humility.  Sweetness  enters 
with  him,  and  light,  if  I  may  once  more  unite 
rather  overworked  substantives  which  have  come 
down  to  us  from  Swift.  He  does  light  up  the  room 
as  he  enters,  and  the  faces  of  those  who  are  already 
in  it.  His  coming  is  a  delight  to  everybody  and 
now  we  know  what  is  before  us. 

His  manner  as  he  receives  and  returns  the 
greetings  of  his  friends  is  distinctly  French. 
After  all  the  guests  have  arrived  and  the  Governor- 
General  and  Lady  Minto  have  entered  the  room, 
Sir  Wilfrid's  homage  to  the  representative  of  the 
sovereign  and  to  Lady  Minto  has  an  essentially 
Parisian  elegance.  Nobody  would  mistake  him 
for  an  Englishman  by  birth  or  race.  He  is  Eng- 
lish politically  and  officially;  none  more  loyal  to 


The  Alaska  Boundary  263 

the  King  of  England  and  England  herself  than  he ; 
but  personally  he  is  French;  taller,  however,  than 
the  average  Frenchman,  and  of  a  larger  frame. 
The  head  is  well  set,  the  forehead  broad  and  high, 
a  soft  light  in  the  eyes  till  something  is  said  which 
sets  them  burning,  the  mouth  firm,  and  the  whole 
face,  in  contour  and  expression,  quite  as  much 
that  of  the  man  of  thought  as  action.  There  are 
not  many  men  of  whom  another  man  uses  the 
word  charm  but  Sir  Wilfrid  is  one ;  and  women  use 
it  of  him  more  freely  still. 

He  talked  easily  and  well.  He  speaks  English 
and  French  with  equal  fluency,  with  finish  also, 
and  is  never  at  a  loss  for  an  idiomatic  phrase. 
Yet  the  English  is  not  quite  the  English  heard  to- 
day in  London,  nor  is  his  French  Parisian.  The 
Canadians  have,  in  addition  to  many  other  kinds, 
the  patriotism  of  language.  Quebec  has  its  own 
French,  the  French  of  the  eighteenth  century  or  of 
Toiu^aine  to-day;  and  Toronto  its  own  English, 
also  now  and  then  slightly  archaic.  Yet  in 
Toronto  dwells,  and  has  long  dwelt,  the  first  of 
living  writers  of  living  English.  I  mean  Mr. 
Goldwin  Smith;  the  fires  of  his  intellectual  youth 
still,  at  eighty-three,  unquenched,  and  by  another 
paradox  the  English  author  of  the  best  political 
history  of  the  United  States.  Canada  does  not 
like  his  Canadian  views,  but  they  remain  his  views, 
just  as  he,  for  all  his  Canadian  residence,  remains 
English.'  Perhaps  it  is  part  of  Sir  Wilfrid's 
diplomacy  that  he  practises  both  these  varieties 
of  French  and  English  speech.     He  takes  liberties 

'  Mr.  Smith  died,  June,  1910. 


264  Anglo-American  Memories 

with  each  language,  as  a  man  who  is  master  of 
both  is  entitled  to,  and  in  each  his  soft  tones  are 
persuasive. 

Nothing  seemed  to  come  amiss  to  him.  The 
social  topics  of  Ottawa  have  not  quite  the  same 
range  as  in  London,  but  to  the  people  of  Ottawa 
they  are  not  less  engrossing.  Even  scandal  was 
not  unknown  in  those  days,  and  gossip  floated 
about,  and  sometimes  politics  came  to  the  top, 
as  they  will  anywhere  when  they  are  not  too 
trivial,  and  even  when  they  are.  Ottawa  was, 
at  any  rate,  with  its  fifty  thousand  people  and  its 
lumber  trade,  the  capital  of  Sir  Wilfrid's  kingdom. 
Parliament  was  sitting  in  that  finely  placed  Parlia- 
ment House  crowning  the  cliff  on  the  river,  and 
all  Canada  was  there,  in  the  substantial  persons  of 
its  delegates  and  Ministers.  Before  I  left  I  came 
to  know  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  Ministers.  Lunch- 
ing one  day  with  Sir  Wilfrid  at  the  Rideau  Club, 
I  found  myself  in  a  group  of  a  dozen  or  more 
political  personages,  all,  I  think,  in  office.  They 
struck  me  as  able  men  with  a  gift  of  businesslike 
talk.  But  there  were  not  two  Sir  Wilfrid  Lauriers. 
The  long  reign  of  Sir  John  Macdonald  had  not 
proved  fertile  in  new  men.  Sir  John  was  a  sort 
of  Canadian  Diaz,  and  had  done  for  the  Dominion 
not  what  the  President  of  the  great  Central  Ameri- 
can Republic  had  done  for  Mexico,  but  a  service 
not  less  personal  and  individual.  Both  had  been 
dictators.  Both  had  known  how  to  use  the  forms 
of  representative  government  in  such  a  way  as 
to  consolidate  and  perpetuate  arbitrary  personal 


The  Alaska  Boundary  265 

power,  and  for  something  like  the  same  period. 
In  a  way,  Sir  Wilfrid  has  done  a  similar  thing,  only 
you  never  could  think  a  Minister  of  these  endear- 
ing manners  arbitrary.  There  is  a  more  important 
difference  still.  Sir  John  Macdonald  had  organ- 
ized political  corruption  into  a  system.  Sir  Wilfrid 
is  free  from  any  such  imputation  as  that.  Charges 
have  been  heard  against  some  of  his  Ministers; 
never  against  Sir  Wilfrid. 

It  was  perhaps  by  accident  that  we  began  to 
discuss  the  Alaska  boundary;  or  perhaps  not  by 
accident.  I  do  not  know.  Thinking  the  matter 
over  afterward,  it  seemed  possible  enough  that 
Sir  Wilfrid  had  shaped  events  in  his  own  mind 
from  the  first.  He  may  have  been  glad  of  an 
opportunity  to  communicate  with  Washington 
indirectly  and  unofficially,  or  desirous  that  the 
President  should  know  what  was  in  his  mind  and 
learn  it  otherwise  than  via  London.  He  was  very 
anxious  as  well  he  might  be.  I  had  lately  been  in 
Washington  and  knew  pretty  well  the  views  of 
the  President  and  of  Mr.  Hay.  I  had  made  two 
or  three  visits  to  Ottawa  before  the  Alaska  con- 
versations with  Sir  Wilfrid  took  place.  In  the 
interval  Mr.  McKinley  had  ceased  to  be  President. 
He  had  been  murdered  by  a  foreigner  with  an  un- 
pronounceable name,  and  while  the  murderer  was 
waiting  in  his  cell  to  be  executed  the  American 
women,  suffragists  of  the  militant  kind,  had  sent 
him,  to  quote  an  American  writer,  "flowers,  jellies, 
books,  and  sympathy."  The  discipline  of  the 
prison  did  not  forbid  these  gifts.     Mr.  Roosevelt 


266  Anglo-American  Memories 

had  become  President.  Mr.  Hay  remained  Secre- 
tary of  State,  perhaps  with  a  hand  less  free  than 
he  had  under  Mr.  McKinley,  who  was  aware  that 
he  himself  was  not  master  of  all  subjects  or  perhaps 
of  any  subject  not  essentially  American. 

When  the  moment  came  Sir  Wilfrid  began 
casually  enough,  in  a  way  that  would  have  allowed 
him  to  stop  whenever  he  chose.  But  he  went  on, 
and  after  a  talk  at  Government  House  one  day 
asked  me  to  call  on  him  at  Parliament  House  on 
the  morrow. 

There  again  the  talk  continued,  and  it  was 
followed  by  one  still  longer  when  Sir  Wilfrid  came 
back  to  Government  House  next  day  with  papers 
and  maps.  Over  these  we  spent  some  hours. 
There  were  few  details  in  all  the  complicated  Alaska 
business  which  were  not  familiar  to  him;  and  of 
the  whole  question  he  had  a  grasp  which  made 
details  almost  unimportant.  His  view  struck  me 
as  reasoned,  detached,  with  a  settled  purpose 
behind  it.  He  was  quite  ready  for  compromise. 
I  never  knew  a  statesman  anywhere  who  was  not, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the  ninety-two 
statesmen  who  compose  the  United  States  Senate. 
For  myself,  I  had  to  look  two  ways.  I  was  obliged, 
that  is,  to  understand  both  points  of  view,  the 
Canadian  and  the  American,  for  I  was  then  the 
representative  of  The  Times  in  the  United  States. 

When  we  had  gone  over  the  whole  matter  I  said 
to  Sir  Wilfrid  that  I  thought  I  understood  his 
opinions  and  the  policy  he  desired  to  follow.  But 
what  was  I  to  do?     Not  a  word  of  what  he  had 


The  Alaska  Boundary  267 

said  to  me  could  have  been  intended  for  print,  nor 
can  it  be  printed  now,  even  after  all  these  years  and 
after  the  settlement.  But  some  object  he  must  have 
had,  and  I  asked  him  if  I  was  at  liberty  to  draw 
any  inference  from  these  interviews.  I  was  leaving 
Ottawa  the  next  day. 

"Are  you  going  to  Washington?" 

"Yes." 

"Shall  you  see  the  President  or  Mr.  Hay?" 

"Both." 

"Well,  if  you  think  anything  you  have  heard 
here  likely  to  interest  the  President  or  Mr.  Hay, 
I  don't  see  why  you  should  not  discuss  the  matter 
with  them  as  you  have  with  me,  if  they  choose." 

The  story  of  what  happened  at  Washington 
I  reserve  for  another  chapter.  But  Sir  Wilfrid's 
way  of  dealing  with  the  subject  on  this  occasion 
may  perhaps  stand  for  an  example  of  what  I  have 
called  his  diplomatic  manner.  He  was  not  over- 
solicitous  about  precedents  or  formalities.  He 
was  quite  ready  to  avail  himself  of  such  opportuni- 
ties as  chance  offered  him,  and  of  such  instruments 
as  came  in  his  way.  His  absolute  good  faith  was 
beyond  question.  If  his  suggestions,  or  rather 
the  frank  statement  of  his  own  views  and  of  what 
he  was  ready  to  do  had  proved  acceptable  at 
Washington,  he  would  have  put  them  into  official 
shape,  and  there  would  presently  have  been  a 
dispatch  from  the  Foreign  Office  to  the  State 
Department,  and  history  would  have  been  differ- 
ently written.  Why  this  did  not  happen  will  appear 
when  the  Washington  end  of  the  story  is  told. 


268  Anglo-American  Memories 


II 


Leaving  Ottawa  the  day  after  the  last  of  these 
conversations  with  the  Canadian  Prime  Minister, 
I  went  to  Washington.  There  I  saw  both  the 
President  and  Mr.  Hay.  I  said,  of  course,  I  had 
no  authority  to  bind  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  to  any- 
thing, but  I  had  a  strong  impression  and  this 
impression  I  laid  before  them.  As  a  matter  of 
convenience  I  had  drawn  up  a  memorandum,  of 
which  I  had  sent  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  a  copy.  When 
Mr.  Hay  asked  me  whether  I  had  any  notes  of 
my  conversations  with  the  Canadian  Prime  Minis- 
ter I  handed  him  this  memorandum ;  rather  a  long 
document.  He  wished  it  read  to  him,  and  it  was. 
Then  we  talked  it  over.     Mr.  Hay  said: 

"I  suppose  you  will  see  the  President.  I  shall 
see  him  also,  but  I  think  it  will  be  better  you 
should  make  your  statement  to  him  separately." 

My  belief  is  that  both  of  them  would  have  been 
disposed  to  consider  the  Canadian  Prime  Minis- 
ter's attitude  a  reasonable  one,  and  if  an  official 
proposal  in  that  sense  had  been  made,  and  if  it 
had  rested  with  the  President  to  say  yes  or  no,  he 
would  have  accepted  it.  But  acceptance  involved 
a  treaty,  and  what  was  the  use  of  agreeing  to  a 
treaty  which  had  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  United 
States  Senate — '  *  the  graveyard  of  treaties ' '  ?  The 
Senate  at  that  time  was  in  one  of  its  most  irrecon- 
cilable moods.  In  truth,  the  President  had  found 
himself  more  than  once  in  collision  with  the  Sen- 
ate, and  the  momxcnt  was  not  propitious.     Certain 


The  Alaska  Boundary  269 

Senators,  moreover,  had  fixed  opinions  as  to  the 
proper  disposition  of  this  Alaska  dispute,  and  from 
these  opinions  it  was  known  they  would  not  de- 
part. At  another  time,  when  I  hope  to  have  some- 
thing to  say  about  Mr.  Roosevelt,  I  may  add  a 
little,  though  not  much,  to  this  brief  account.  It 
can  never  be  treated  except  with  great  reserve. 

I  had  told  Sir  Wilfrid  when  I  said  good-bye  that 
I  feared  the  Senate  would  prove  an  invincible 
obstacle  to  an  agreement.  I  saw  the  President 
several  times,  and  the  whole  matter  was  gone  into. 
After  my  last  conversation  with  him,  which  did 
not  end  till  past  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I 
wrote  Sir  Wilfrid  that  I  saw  no  chance  at  present 
of  carrying  the  matter  further.  He  answered  very 
kindly  but  regretfully,  and  so  all  this  ended ;  with- 
out result  for  the  time  being.  I  add  only  that 
the  sagacity  of  the  Canadian,  the  statesmanlike 
sagacity,  impressed  the  President  and  Mr.  Hay 
alike.  If  it  had  been  possible  to  lay  the  whole 
story  before  the  Senate,  it  might  have  impressed 
that  body  also. 

But  Jefferson's  phrase  about  government  by 
newspapers  applies,  or  part  of  it  applies,  to  the 
Senate,  or  shall  I  say  to  part  of  the  Senate?  What- 
ever is  known  to  the  Senate  soon  becomes  known 
to  the  newspapers.  A  single  illustration  will 
suffice.  The  Senate  transacts  executive  business 
in  secret  session.  The  galleries  are  cleared;  the 
Press  gallery  as  well  as  the  others.  But  within  an 
hour  of  the  close  of  an  executive  session  a  full 
abstract  of  its  proceedings  is  in  the  hands  of  the 


270  An^lo-American  Memories 


Press  agents.  Besides,  I  had  no  authority  to 
repeat  what  Sir  Wilfrid  had  said  to  anybody  but 
the  President  and  Mr.  Hay.  Sir  Wilfrid  is  a  man 
so  free  from  official  pedantry  or  even  convention- 
alities that  I  think  it  likely  he  would  have  agreed 
to  an  informal  commimication  to  the  Senate,  but 
he  was  not  asked.  There  was  no  occasion  to  ask 
him.  The  objections  were  too  evident.  Mr. 
Hay  said:  "Anything  I  favour  the  Senate  will 
oppose." 

Of  the  President  some  very  leading  Senators 
were  not  less  suspicious.  There  was  to  be  no 
agreement  until  the  Senate  could  dictate  terms. 
The  subsequent  agreement  for  an  Alaska  Boun- 
dary Commission  was  a  Senate  agreement.  It  did 
not  provide  for  arbitration.  If  it  had,  the  Senate 
would  have  rejected  it.  It  was  not  supposed  that 
a  tribunal  composed  of  three  members  from  each 
side  would  reach  a  decision.  All  men  now  know 
that  if  it  did  it  was  because  the  Lord  Chief  Justice 
of  England  conceived  it  to  be  his  duty  to  vote  in 
accordance  with  the  facts  and  the  law.  He  had 
not  laid  aside  his  judicial  character  when  he  be- 
came a  Commissioner. 

As  it  was  Lord  Alverstone's  vote  which  turned 
the  scale  in  favour  of  the  United  States,  the 
Canadians  attacked  him  with  bitterness.  He 
made  one  reply,  and  one  only,  and  even  this  had  no 
direct  reference  to  Canada.  Speaking  at  a  dinner 
in  London  he  said:  "If  when  any  kind  of  arbitra- 
tion is  set  up  they  don't  want  a  decision  based  on 
the  law  and  the  evidence,  they  must  not  put  a 


The  Alaska  Boundary  271 

British  judge  on  the  commission. "  Writing  as  an 
American  I  think  it  due  to  Lord  Alverstone  to  say 
that  nothing  ever  did  more  to  convince  Americans 
of  British  fairness  than  his  act.  It  was  his  act  also 
that  put  to  rest  a  controversy  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  Canadian  statesmen  and  American  statesmen 
alike,  contained  elements  of  the  gravest  danger 
to  peace.  If  he  had  done  nothing  else  he  would 
take  his  place  in  history  as  a  great  Lord  Chief 
Justice. 

The  Briton  is  so  constituted  that  it  is  probable 
he  admires  Lord  Alverstone,  formerly  Richard  and 
then  Sir  Richard  Webster,  almost  as  much  for  his 
renown  in  sport  as  for  his  professional  eminence, 
of  which  to  be  Tubman  and  then  Postman  in  the 
Court  of  Exchequer  was  one  part.  He  was,  and 
is,  an  athlete,  and  used  to  win  running  races,  and 
perhaps  still  could,  being  now  only  sixty-seven 
years  of  age.  You  used  always  to  hear  him  spoken 
of  as  "  Dick  Webster. "  At  Cambridge  University 
he  had  such  eminence  in  the  study  of  mathematics 
as  entitled  him  to  be  thirty-fifth  Wrangler;  and 
in  the  more  humane  letters  so  much  proficiency 
as  made  him  third-class  classic.  In  the  Schools, 
that  is,  he  was  less  energetic  than  on  the  track. 

But  success  at  the  Bar  does  not  depend  on  the 
Differential  Calculus  or  on  Latin  and  Greek. 
Within  ten  years  after  being  called  he  was  Q.C., 
and  having  found  a  seat  in  Parliament,  became 
Attorney-General  in  Lord  Salisbury's  Government 
in  1885-6.  Within  seventeen  years  he  had  reached 
the    highest    unjudicial   place    in    his    profession. 


272  Anglo-American  Memories 

He  held  the  same  office  three  times ;  then  was  made 
Master  of  the  Rolls;  the  judge  who  in  point  of 
dignity  comes  next  after  the  Lord  Chancellor  and 
the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and  finally,  in  1900,  Lord 
Chief  Justice  of  England.  During  his  service  at 
the  Bar  he  had  been  a  great  patent  lawyer ;  with  an 
income  which  rumour  put  at  £30,000,  or  $150,000; 
for  this  country  perhaps  the  maximum,  outside 
of  the  parliamentary  Bar.  Such  is  a  bare  outline 
of  the  career,  in  all  respects  distinguished,  hon- 
ourable, stainless,  of  the  man  on  whom  Canada 
poured  out  criticisms  which  did  not  stop  short  of 
vituperation.  They  need  no  answer.  If  they 
did,  it  is  not  my  place  to  answer  them.  Not 
one  human  being  in  England  believed  Lord 
Alverstone  capable  of  the  dishonesty  which  the 
Canadian  papers  imputed  to  him. 

I  am  afraid  I  must  add  that  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier 
was  one  of  Lord  Alverstone's  critics.  The  feeling 
throughout  Canada  was  so  strong  that  he  had 
perhaps  no  choice,  or  no  choice  but  between  that 
and  either  resignation  or  defeat.  No  pilot  could 
weather  that  storm.  The  feeling  of  Canada  was 
emotional.  What  he  said,  he  said  as  Prime  Minis- 
ter. Yet  whether  as  Prime  Minister  or  as  Sir 
Wilfrid  Laurier  he  must  have  rejoiced  in  the 
settlement;  even  though  it  were  at  the  expense  of 
Canadian  claims.  I  do  not  think  Canada  had  any 
valid  claims,  or  had  a  case  which  before  any  impar- 
tial tribunal  could  have  been  maintained.  But 
whether  she  had  or  not,  it  was  for  her  interest 
to  see  them  once  for  all  swept  away  and  peace 


The  Alaska  Boundary  273 

and  good  feeling  established  between  her  and  her 
neighbour. 

Our  Canadian  friends  must  have  been  aware  at 
the  time  that  they  stood  alone.  In  their  attacks 
on  Lord  Alverstone  they  had  no  backing  in  England. 
No  English  newspaper  ever  suggested  that  Lord 
Alverstone  had  voted  otherwise  than  according  to 
his  conscience.  England  knew  him  to  be  incor- 
ruptible and  unassailable,  and  laughed  at  the 
suggestion  that  he  did  not  understand  the  Cana- 
dian claims.  It  was  because  he  understood  them 
that  he  decided  against  them. 

The  English,  it  is  true,  have  thought  themselves 
unlucky  in  arbitrations,  and  have  fallen  into  the 
habit  of  expecting  an  adverse  decision  from  an 
arbitration  tribunal.  The  Geneva  tribunal  in- 
stilled into  them  that  reluctant  expectation.  But 
as  this  was  not  an  arbitration  but  simply  a  Com- 
mission for  determining  the  true  boundary  line  of 
Alaska,  they  accepted  in  a  sporting  spirit  the 
judgment  of  their  own  Lord  Chief  Justice.  How 
could  they  do  otherwise?  On  the  constitution  of 
the  tribunal,  and  on  the  claims  of  Senator  Lodge 
and  Senator  Turner  to  be  impartial,  they  had 
remarks  to  make.  On  the  other  hand,  were  the 
Canadian  members  impartial? 

There  can  be  no  harm  now  in  saying  that  Sir 

Wilfrid  looked  upon  the  Alaskan  situation  with 

gloomy  forebodings.     So  did  everybody  on  both 

sides  of  the  border;  everybody  who  understood 

the  situation  and  would  give  himself  the  trouble  to 

think,  and  had  a  sense  of  responsibility.     In  the 
18 


274  Anglo-American  Memories 

disputed  belt  of  territory,  Alaskan  territory  which 
the  United  States  claimed  and  Canada  claimed, 
gold  might  at  any  moment  be  discovered.  There 
would  come  a  rush  from  both  sides.  We  all  know 
what  the  gold-miners  are — a  rough  lot,  not  always 
recognizing  any  law  but  the  law  of  the  strongest 
and  the  most  covetous.  They  make  laws  for 
themselves,  and  even  those  they  do  not  keep. 
Many  of  them  are  desperate,  many  ruined,  many 
outlaws;  many  have  no  other  hope  than  in  finding 
gold  somewhere  and  getting  it  anyhow.  They  are 
all  armed.  Revolvers  are  the  arbitrators  whose 
decisions  they  respect.  In  the  presence  of  new- 
found gold,  what  are  boundaries  or  titles  or  inter- 
national relations?  Inevitably  they  would  cross 
the  border  into  the  debatable  land,  Canadians  and 
Americans  alike.  What  would  the  flag  mean  to 
bankrupt  gamblers  who  saw  once  more  the  hope 
of  riches?  There  would  be  disputes.  There  would 
be  collisions.  At  any  moment  a  shot  might  be 
fired,  and  then  what?     The  risk  was  awful. 

This,  I  have  no  doubt,  was  the  risk  Sir  Wilfrid 
had  in  mind.  It  meant  nothing  less  than  the 
possibility  of  war  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States.  Gold  once  discovered,  the  possi- 
bility became  a  probability.  Could  a  Canadian 
statesman,  could  an  American  statesman,  think 
of  that  hazard  and  not  be  willing  to  do  much,  or 
even  to  concede  much,  in  order  to  avert  it?  Yet 
of  all  the  men  of  both  nationalities  with  whom,  then 
and  after,  I  have  talked  about  Alaska,  Sir  Wilfrid 
alone  had  a  clear  view  of  the  danger,  and  he  alone 


The  Alaska  Boundary  275 

was  willing  to  do  what  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
make  war  impossible.  For  that  reason  he  stands 
forth  a  great  patriot,  a  great  Canadian,  a  great 
Englishman.  World-wide  as  is  his  fame  he  de- 
serves a  greater.  It  is  not  yet  possible  to  do  him 
full  justice.  It  may  never  be.  But  his  views  and 
proposals  and  large  wisdom,  as  they  were  set  forth 
in  these  conversations,  put  him,  in  my  opinion, 
in  the  very  front  rank  of  statesmen  of  his  time. 
The  impression  they  made  on  the  President  and 
Mr.  Hay  was  profound.  They  too  were  states- 
men but  their  hands  were  tied. 

It  is  further  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  North- 
western border  was  in  a  ferment.  That  great 
belt  of  powerful  States  conterminous  with  Canada 
had  long  nursed  its  grievances.  The  Alaska 
question  did  not  stand  alone.  It  never  has.  There 
were  questions  of  duties,  of  tariffs,  of  lumber  rights, 
of  the  rights  of  lake  and  canal  navigation,  of 
fisheries,  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  and  many  others — 
thirteen  specific  subjects  in  all.  They  had  once 
been  all  but  settled.  The  High  Commissioners  in 
the  last  conference  at  Washington  had  come  to 
terms  on  all  but  Alaska  when,  in  an  unlucky 
moment.  Lord  Herschell,  believing  he  could  force 
the  hand  of  the  Americans,  put  forth  an  ultimatum 
out  of  a  blue  sky.  It  must  be  all  or  none.  There 
must  be  no  settlement  which  does  not  include 
Alaska.  Lord  Herschell  had  been  thought  of  a 
contentious  mind  all  through.  Americans  bore 
with  that,  but  to  an  ultimatum,  an  agreement  at 
the  mouth  of  a  gun,  we  would  not  submit.     So 


276  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  whole  went  off.  What  was  the  result?  There 
came  a  time  when  Sir  Wilfrid  himself  had  to 
announce  that  there  would  be  no  more  pilgrimages 
to  Washington.     Nor  have  there  been. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

ANNEXING  CANADA — LADY  ABERDEEN — LADY  MINTO 

T^HE  first  person  from  whom  I  heard  of  the 
■*  American  immigration  into  Canada  was  Sir 
Wilfrid  Laurier.  He  told  me  it  had  begun  quietly, 
a  few  American  farmers  drifting  across  the  border 
in  search  of  better  and  cheaper  land  than  could  be 
had  at  home.  There  was  no  sound  of  drum  or 
trumpet.  These  men  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
talk  of  annexation.  They  had  no  political  object. 
Their  object  was  agricultural;  only  that  and  no- 
thing more.  It  is  possible  enough  that  the  reputed 
riches  of  the  North-west  province  of  Canada  had 
something  to  do  with  the  policy,  if  it  can  be  called 
a  policy,  of  the  American  annexationists,  desiring 
to  fire  the  hearts  of  the  farmers  in  Illinois  and 
Minnesota  who  saw  the  yield  of  their  wheat 
lands  diminishing  yearly.  It  seems  never  to  have 
occurred  to  the  politicians  that  the  farmers  were 
quite  capable  of  looking  after  their  own  interests, 
and  that  it  was  cheaper  to  buy  land  than  to  make 
war  for  it. 

The  movement  had,  at  the  time  of  this  conver- 
sation in  1902,  been  going  on  for  years.     Beginning 

by  scores,  it  had  risen  to  hundreds  yearly,  then 

277 


lyd)  Anglo-American  Memories 

thousands.  Sir  Wilfrid  computed  that  there  were 
altogether  some  fift}^  or  sixty  thousand  American 
settlers  in  the  Canadian  North-west,  and  that  the 
yearly  exodus  from  "the  States"  had  reached  six 
thousand. 

''But  does  not  that  raise  or  threaten  to  raise  a 
political  issue?" 

"Oh,  it  is  much  too  soon  to  think  of  that. " 

Nevertheless,  I  imagine  Sir  Wilfrid  did  think 
of  it,  and  it  may  have  been  present  to  Lord  Grey's 
mind  when  he  launched  his  memorable  declaration 
at  the  Waldorf  Hotel  tw^o  years  later.  Now,  the 
number  of  Americans  who  are  moving  northward 
and  acquiring  Canadian  soil  is  computed  at  a 
hundred  thousand  yearty  or  more.  The  political 
difficulty,  if  there  were  one,  would  seem  to  be  met 
by  the  Canadian  law  allowing  aliens  to  hold  land 
but  requiring  them  to  become  Canadians  at  the 
end  of  three  years.  I  am  told  there  is  such  a  law 
but  I  do  not  know. 

In  truth,  the  political  difficulty  has  never  out- 
grown manageable  limits.  There  has  always  been 
more  or  less  "tall  talk"  about  annexing  Canada. 
Eloquent  phrases  have  been  heard — "One  conti- 
nent, one  flag, "  or  "the  Stars  and  Stripes  from  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Arctic  Circle."  But  no 
party  has  taken  up  this  cry.  One  newspaper  in 
New  York,  The  Sun,  did  for  a  time  preach  annexa- 
tion. The  Sun  is  a  joru*nal  which  does  not  disdain 
sensations,  and  has  taught  its  readers  to  expect 
them,  and  from  time  to  time  fulfils  the  expecta- 
tions it  excites.     The  editor  at  that  time  was  Mr. 


Canada  279 

Paul  Dana,  son  of  the  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana  who 
made  The  Sim  a  powerful  journal.  Mr.  Paul  Dana 
started  a  society  to  promote  the  acquisition  of 
Canada.  The  capital  of  the  society  was  $125,000, 
or  £25,000.  That  was  the  sum  which  Mr.  Paul 
Dana  and  his  friends  thought  sufficient,  or  were 
able  to  raise,  if  they  did  raise  it,  to  sever  from  the 
British  Empire  a  Dominion  larger  than  the  United 
States  without  Alaska,  capable,  in  military  opin- 
ion, of  self-defence,  but,  in  any  case,  with  the 
military  and  naval  power  of  Great  Britain  behind 
it.  Mr.  Paul  Dana,  however,  did  not  pursue 
matters  to  the  bitter  end.  He  has  ceased  to  be 
editor  of  The  Sun  and  Canada  remains  British. 
I  do  not  know  whether  his  annexation  society  is 
still  in  existence.  But  the  American  appetite  for 
Canada,  never  keen,  has  grown  duller  still.  Men's 
minds  turn  to  other  things.  The  Philippines  and 
Hawaii  and  Porto  Rico  and  the  defence  of  the 
Pacific  Coast  are  more  than  enough  to  occupy  our 
attention.  The  Senate  itself  has  grown  tractable, 
and  on  the  chief  points  of  difference  an  agreement 
has  been  reached  where  five  years  ago  no  agree- 
ment seemed  possible. 

Two  years  after  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  became 
Prime  Minister  the  somewhat  agitated  and  per- 
haps agitating  Governor-Generalship  of  Lord 
Aberdeen  came  to  an  end.  I  suppose  the  cause 
of  the  troubled  waters  on  which  that  particular 
ship  of  State  was  tossed  was  not  to  be  found  wholly 
or  mainly  in  Lord  Aberdeen  himself,  but  in  the 
multitudinous  energies  of  Lady  Aberdeen.     Her 


2So  Anglo-American  Memories 

convictions  were  strong,  her  zeal  was  continuous, 
her  certainty  of  being  in  the  right  was  a  certainty 
she  shared  with  her  sex,  or  with  all  those  women 
who  think  public  affairs  their  proper  sphere. 
She  had  many  admirable  qualities  and  a  coirrage 
which  shrank  from  no  adventure  merely  because  it 
was  an  adventure. 

Her  zeal  in  the  cause  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland 
is  well  known.  It  had  been  shown  in  Dublin.  It 
was  shown  now  at  Ottawa.  It  crossed  the  border 
and  hung  out  a  flag  in  Chicago.  In  the  Chicago 
Exhibition,  or,  as  it  was  officially  called,  the 
''World's  Columbian  Exposition,"  in  1893,  there 
was,  among  other  attractions,  an  Irish  village. 
This  village  Lady  Aberdeen  took  under  her  patron- 
age, and  over  it  she  hoisted  an  Irish  flag  of  the 
kind  in  which  the  Home  Rule  heart  rejoices;  a  flag 
with  the  Harp  but  without  the  Crown.  If  Lady 
Aberdeen  had  done  this  as  a  private  individual 
it  could  hardly  have  been  allowed  to  pass.  But 
she  did  it  as  wife  of  the  Governor- General  of  the 
Dominion  of  Canada.  There  were  official  re- 
monstrances and  the  flag  was  lowered.  Against 
an  indiscretion  of  that  kind  may  be  set  many 
useful  and  charitable  enterprises,  begun  or  en- 
couraged by  this  lady  in  Ottawa  and  all  over 
Canada.  She  is  kindly  remembered  there,  and 
her  visits  to  Canada  since  Lord  Aberdeen  ceased 
to  be  Governor-General  have  been  welcomed. 
But  there  are  many  stories  of  her  crusading  spirit 
besides  the  one  I  have  told,  and  I  suppose  the 
Canadians  really  like  to  live  a  more  peaceful  life 


Canada  281 

than  they  were  allowed  to  when  Lady  Aberdeen 
ruled  over  them. 

Lord  Minto  succeeded  Lord  Aberdeen.  Sir 
Wilfrid  Laurier  was  Prime  Minister  during  the 
whole  of  Lord  Minto's  term,  and  Mr.  Chamberlain 
was  Secretary  for  the  Colonies  down  to  the  last 
year.  I  suppose  it  may  be  remarked  that  seldom 
have  three  great  officials  worked  in  a  harmony 
more  complete  than  did  these  three.  It  can 
hardly  be  necessary  to  say  anything  of  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain except  this;  that  his  masterfulness  never 
made  itself  felt  in  Canada  in  such  a  way  as  to 
weaken,  but  always  in  such  a  way  as  to  strengthen, 
the  tie  between  the  Motherland  and  the  Colony. 
His  Imperialism  took  account  of  the  Dominion 
as  well  as  of  the  Empire ;  it  took  equal  account  for 
all  purposes.  It  was  under  this  strong  hand  that 
Canada  felt  her  independence,  perhaps  for  the 
first  time,  completely  safeguarded. 

Between  Lord  Minto  and  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier 
there  was  on  all  subjects  an  understanding.  That 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  saying  they  never  differed, 
which  would  be  absurd.  But  they  had  before 
them  the  same  high  objects,  and  they  pretty  well 
agreed  as  to  the  means  of  attaining  them.  The 
relations  between  Government  House  and  Parlia- 
ment House,  where  the  Prime  Minister  had  his 
headquarters,  were  cordial,  frank,  unrestrained, 
and  delightful.  That  there  should  be  relations 
of  that  kind  between  the  representative  of  the 
Crown  and  the  representative  of  the  Dominion 
is  of  equal  advantage  to  the  Crown  and  to  the 


282  Anglo-American  Memories 

Dominion.  They  have  not  always  existed,  but 
there  seems  every  reason  to  believe  they  will 
exist  in  the  future,  as  they  did  in  Lord  Minto's 
time,  and  as  they  do  now  that  Lord  Grey  speaks 
for  the  Sovereign  and  Sir  Wilfrid  Latirier  is  still 
the  trusted  Prime  Minister  of  a  Dominion  which 
has  grown  too  great  to  be  called  a  Colony. 

As  I  have  mentioned  Lady  Aberdeen,  I  may 
say  a  word,  though  for  a  different  reason,  about 
Lady  Minto,  who  for  six  years  was  the  idol  of 
Ottawa  and  of  the  whole  Dominion.  If  ever  there 
was  an  example  of  tact  and  felicity  in  the  discharge 
of  the  duties  that  fall  to  the  wife  of  a  Governor- 
General,  Lady  Minto  was  that  example.  What 
need  be  added  except  that  the  statement  is  not 
a  compliment  but  a  testimony?  The  Canadian 
Press  has  paid  its  tribute  and  there  are  other 
tributes.  One  is  that  in  Quebec  and  Toronto,  the 
capital  of  the  French  Roman  Catholic  province 
and  the  capital  of  the  British  Protestant  province, 
Lady  Minto  was  equally  popular  and  equally 
beloved.  In  a  very  literal  but  strictly  correct  and 
conventional  sense  it  may  be  said  that  she  was  a 
power  in  the  Dominion.  The  receptions  at  Gov- 
ernment House  were  very  interesting;  perhaps 
sometimes  curious  as  an  example  of  democracy 
undergoing  a  social  evolution.  In  all  the  Com- 
monwealths beyond  the  seas  the  same  process,  I 
presume,  may  be  studied.  When  Lady  Carring- 
ton  issued  three  thousand  invitations  to  a  reception 
at  Government  House  in  Sydney  the  limit  had 
perhaps  been  reached  for  the  time. 


Canada  283 

There  can  be  no  such  throng  at  Government 
House  in  Ottawa  because  it  is  not  large  enough; 
perhaps  is  not  quite  large  enough  for  the  dignity 
of  the  Dominion  in  these  days  of  its  amazing 
growth  and  ever-increasing  importance.  But  Ot- 
tawa, though  a  flourishing  city,  is  not  a  great 
city.  It  is  a  compromise  capital;  the  middle 
term  in  which  the  rivalries  of  Quebec  on  the 
one  hand  and  Toronto  on  the  other  found  a 
means  of  peace  on  neutral  and  central  ground. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

TWO   GOVERNORS-GENERAL — LORD   MINTO  AND 
LORD   GREY 

T  ORD  MINTO  has  now  passed  from  the  great 
^  post  of  Governor-General  of  the  Dominion 
to  the  still  greater  Viceroy alty  of  India.  But  I 
apprehend  it  will  be  long  before  his  reign  in  Canada 
is  forgotten.  Possibly  the  Canadians  might  not 
use,  and  may  not  like,  the  word  reign.  They  are 
a  susceptible  as  well  as  a  great  people.  They  are 
jealous  of  their  liberties,  which  are  in  no  danger, 
and  of  the  word  American,  to  which  they  have 
some  claim,  over-shadowed  though  it  be  by  their 
greater  neighbour  on  the  South.  I  have  seen 
more  instances  than  one  of  Canadian  sensitive- 
ness, of  which  I  will  take  the  simplest.  Having 
to  pay  for  a  purchase  in  an  Ottawa  shop  I  asked 
the  shopkeeper  whether  he  would  take  an  Ameri- 
can banknote.     He  answered  with  a  flushed  face: 

"We  consider  our  money  as  much  American  as 
yours.  We  have  the  same  right  as  you  to  the 
name  American. " 

"By  all  means.  But  what  do  you  call  our 
money?" 

"United  States  bills. " 

"And  what  do  you  call  me?" 

284 


Two  Governors-General  285 

But  to  that  simple  question  he  had  no  answer 
ready.  And  I  rather  imagine  the  time  has  come, 
or  is  coming,  when  the  Canadian  may  be  as  proud 
of  the  name  which  identifies  him  with  the  northern 
half  of  the  continent  as  we  are  of  the  adjective 
we  have  to  share,  more  or  less,  with  others.  I 
never  heard  of  a  Mexican  calling  himself  an  Amer- 
ican, but  I  believe  the  Latin  races  to  the  South 
do;  and  forget  sometimes  to  put  South  before  it. 

Lord  Minto  was  Governor-General  while  Mr. 
Chamberlain  was  Colonial  Secretary,  a  period  of 
transition,  of  Imperial  transition,  to  which  Mr. 
Chamberlain  led  the  way.  Nobody  has  ever 
forgotten  his  adjuration  to  all  Englishmen  to 
think  imperially.  As  I  remember  Canada  during 
several  visits,  she  was  at  that  time  more  inclined 
to  think  independently.  Not  that  any  party 
in  the  Dominion  meditated  a  secession  from  the 
Empire,  but  there  was  a  pretty  distinct  notion, 
and  claim,  of  colonial  autonomy.  Canada  came 
first,  as  Canada,  and  not  as  a  part  of  the  Empire. 
The  moment  when  Imperial  considerations  first 
became  dominant  in  the  Canadian  mind  was  the 
moment  of  the  Boer  War. 

There  it  is  that  Lord  Minto's  name  becom.es 
indissolubly  allied  with  the  Dominion.  His  share 
in  that  great  transaction  of  the  Canadian  contin- 
gent to  South  Africa  has  never,  I  think,  been  fully 
understood  by  the  British  public.  Nor  would  it 
ever  be  if  the  matter  were  left  to  him.  He  was 
never  a  man  to  advertise  himself  or  his  deeds. 
I  dare  say  he  will  not  like  my  telling  the  story, 


286  Anelo-American  Memories 


'& 


though  I  shall  tell  it  only  as  it  was  told  to  me,  and 
the  teller  had  nothing  to  do  with  Government 
House. 

It  was  for  a  while  doubtful  whether  Canada 
would  send  troops.  There  was,  I  am  told,  an 
uncertain  feeling  about  the  militia  organization, 
then  on  a  different  footing  from  the  present.  There 
were  awkward  stories  of  corruption  and  ineffi- 
ciency. It  was  doubted  whether  a  force  officered 
and  equipped  in  conditions  then  existing  would 
do  credit  to  the  Dominion.  There  were  hesita- 
tions on  other  grounds.  But  when  finally  a  le\y 
was  voted,  Lord  Minto,  who  had  taken  no  part 
in  the  discussion  and  could  take  none,  availed 
himself  of  his  authority  as  Governor- General  and 
of  his  experience  as  a  soldier,  and  gave  his  personal 
attention  to  the  organization  of  the  contingent. 
It  was  stated  to  me  much  more  strongly  than  that, 
and  my  informant  seemed  to  doubt  whether  Lord 
Minto  did  not  exceed,  or  at  least  strain,  his  pre- 
rogatives as  representative  of  the  Crown.  If  he 
did,  so  much  the  better.  The  English  have  ever 
liked  a  servant  in  high  place  who  was  not  afraid  of 
responsibilities.  But  for  my  purpose  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  Lord  Minto  took  an  active  part  in 
these  momentous  preparations.  I  think  no  officer 
was  appointed  without  his  sanction,  no  contract 
for  supplies  entered  into  which  he  did  not  approve, 
no  arrangement  of  any  kind  made  but  upon  his 
initiative  or  with  his  express  consent. 

The  result  was  that  the  Canadian  forces  reached 
South  Africa  a  bodv  of  soldiers  fit  for  the  field. 


Two  Governors-General  287 

not  as  a  mere  aggregation  of  men  food  for  powder. 
England  knows,  and  all  the  world  knows,  what 
service  they  did.  There  were  no  better  troops 
of  the  kind,  perhaps  not  many  of  any  kind  better 
adapted  for  the  work  they  had  to  do  and  for  coping 
with  such  an  enemy  as  the  Boers.  They  did 
more  than  their  contract  called  for  in  the  field. 
They  builded  better  than  they  knew.  They  made 
it  plain  to  all  men  that  the  country  which  had 
sent  such  troops  as  these  many  thousands  of  miles 
beyond  the  seas  to  the  relief  of  the  Imperial  forces 
of  Great  Britain  was  itself  an  integral  and  indis- 
pensable part  of  the  Empire. 

Whereas,  if  they  had  failed  or  only  half  suc- 
ceeded, they  would  have  done  little  good  to  the 
British  arms  in  South  Africa  and  none  at  all  to 
the  Imperialism  of  which  Canada  to-day  is  a  bul- 
wark. And  if  this  is  a  true  account,  as  I  believe 
it  to  be,  of  the  way  in  which  these  two  great  results 
were  brought  about,  the  credit  of  them  belongs 
more  to  Lord  Minto  than  to  any  other  man. 

I  do  not  offer  this  as  an  explanation  of  the  regard 
in  which  Lord  Minto  was  held.  It  could  not  be  an 
explanation,  because  it  was  not  generally  known. 
There  were  other  reasons,  at  the  top  of  which  I 
should  put  his  common  sense,  his  sincerity,  and, 
of  course,  that  devotion  to  duty  which  every 
Governor-General  is  presumed  to  possess,  which 
in  him  was  conspicuous.  Everybody  liked  him, 
nobody  doubted  him.  He  made  the  interests  of 
Canada  his  own.  He  traversed  that  vast  territory 
from  end  to  end  again  and  again.     He  held  a. 


288  Anglo-American  Memories 

Court  not  in  Ottawa  only,  but  in  Quebec,  in  Hali- 
fax, in  Toronto,  and  in  that  Far  North  where 
Canada  touches  Alaska  and  the  chief  harvest  of 
the  soil  is  gold.  His  five  years'  term  came  to  an 
end  but  the  Colonial  Office  and  Parliament  House 
and  the  people  of  Canada  wished  him  to  stay  on, 
and  so  the  five  years  became  six.  A  period  on 
which  to  look  back  with  pride. 

Canada  is  again  fortunate  in  her  Governor- 
General,  and  in  his  relations  with  those  who  mould 
public  opinion  on  the  American  side  of  the  border. 
I  imagine  it  may  not  be  known  in  England  how  he 
first  conquered  the  respect  and  good -will  of  the 
Americans.  It  was  at  a  dinner  of  some  five  hund- 
red or  six  hundred  people  at  the  Waldorf  Hotel 
in  New  York.  In  the  coiu-se  of  his  short  speech 
Lord  Grey  referred,  with  a  plainness  unusual  in 
those  exalted  regions,  to  what  had  been  said  in 
times  past  about  the  possible  absorption  of 
Canada  by  the  United  States. 

"But  now,"  observed  the  Governor-General, 
* '  there  is  no  more  reason  for  discussing  the  annexa- 
tion of  Canada  by  the  United  States  than  for 
discussing  the  annexation  of  the  United  States 
by  Canada." 

It  was  a  straight  hit  from  the  shoulder,  but  the 
audience  rose  to  it  and  cheered  him  as  I  had 
heard  no  Englishman  cheered  in  New  York  before 
that  time.  He  became  in  a  moment  a  great  figure, 
filling  the  public  eye.  He  delivered  his  tremen- 
dous sentence  with  simplicity  and  good  humour. 
There    was    nothing    like    defiance    or    menace. 


Two  Governors-General  289 

Everybody  saw  that  he  felt  himself  on  a  level 
with  his  hearers.  He  spoke  as  Governor- General 
of  the  Dominion  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
d'egal  a  egal.  He  spoke  as  an  Englishman  to 
Americans.  Mr.  Price  Collier  may  say,  if  he 
chooses,  that  English  and  Americans  do  not  like 
each  other,  but  I  will  ask  him  what  other  two 
nationalities  have  the  same,  or  anything  like  the 
same,  points  of  contact  and  of  sympathy?  There 
stood  Lord  Grey,  just  an  Englishman,  holding  out 
his  hand  to  his  American  cousins.  If  the  hand 
happened  for  that  moment  to  be  clenched  it  was 
none  the  less  a  greeting,  and  was  understood  as 
such.  You  could  not  look  into  his  face  without 
seeing  in  it  the  spirit  of  kinship  and  of  friendship. 
Lord  Grey  is  pre-eminently  one  of  those  men  who 
think  the  best  relations  between  men  or  between 
communities  must  spring  from  frankness.  He 
wanted  to  clear  the  ground,  and  he  did  clear  it. 
If  he  had  asked  anybody's  advice  he  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  advised  not  to  say  what  he  did. 
He  preferred  to  trust  to  his  own  instincts,  and  they 
proved  to  be  true  instincts.  The  danger  was  that 
a  freedom  of  speech  which  would  be  accepted 
from  his  lips  might  be  resented  when  read  in  cold 
print.     But  it  was  not. 

No  American  will  have  forgotten  Lord  Grey's 
gift  of  his  portrait  of  Franklin  to  Philadelphia. 
That  endeared  him  to  us  still  further.  It  was  a 
prize  of  war  which  he  surrendered,  taken  in  the 
War  of  the  Revolution  by  General  Sir  Charles 
Grey.     It  used  to  hang  near  the  ceiling  in  one  of 


290  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  reception  rooms  of  Howick  House,  Northum- 
berland. I  saw  it  there  some  time  before  the  gift 
and  Lord  Grey  told  me  its  history,  but  did  not  tell 
me  he  meant  to  give  it  back  to  America.  I  be- 
lieve he  did  ask  whether  I  thought  Philadelphia 
would  care  to  have  it  again,  a  question  to  which 
I  could  not  but  say  yes.  Yet  it  might  almost  be 
thought  of  the  family,  with  a  good  deal  more  than 
a  hundred  years  of  possession  behind  it.  But  in 
this  country  a  hundred  years  do  not  count  so 
much  as  elsewhere.  The  English  have  long  since 
got  into  the  habit  of  reckoning  by  centuries. 

When  Lord  Grey  went  to  Washington  the 
President  asked  me  to  bring  him  to  the  White 
House.  Mrs.  Roosevelt  had  a  reception  that 
evening  and  I  said  with  her  permission  I  would 
bring  him  then.  "Very  good,"  said  the  Presi- 
dent, "and  mind  you  bring  him  to  me  as  soon  as 
you  come."  I  did  as  I  was  told.  The  President 
greeted  him,  as  he  did  everybody,  warmly,  but  in 
a  way  that  made  Lord  Grey  understand  he  was 
welcome.  Within  thirty  seconds  they  were  deep 
in  political  economy,  a  matter  of  which  Lord  Grey 
had  made  a  profounder  study  than  the  President. 
For  the  Englishman  had  not,  like  Bacon  and  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  taken  all  knowledge  to  be  his  province, 
and  was  able  to  master  his  subjects.  More  than 
once  I  had  occasion  to  see  something  of  his  familiar- 
ity with  difficult  subjects — once  at  dinner  when 
the  late  Mr.  Beit,  the  South  African  magnate,  sat 
on  his  right,  and  the  two  discussed  financial  and 
political  questions.     Mr.  Beit  had  made  a  great 


Two  Governors-General  291 

fortune  in  South  Africa,  and  Lord  Grey  had  not. 
The  Chartered  Company  had  not  then  proved  a 
mine  of  wealth  to  its  administrator.  But  the 
minds  of  the  two  were  at  one.  The  knowledge  of 
each  was  immense.  The  power  of  grappling  with 
great  subjects  was  common  to  both.  Perhaps 
Lord  Grey  sometimes  took  an  imaginative  view, 
but  the  feet  of  the  capitalist  were  planted  on  the 
solid  earth. 

The  President  and  the  Governor-General  be- 
came friends  at  once,  neither  of  the  two  being  the 
kind  of  man  to  whom  friendship  requires  length 
of  years  to  come  into  being.  It  is,  of  course,  for 
the  interests  of  both  Canada  and  the  United 
States  that  relations  of  sympathetic  good-will 
should  exist  between  the  rulers  of  each.  A  few 
hours  before  their  meeting  the  President  knew 
nothing  about  Lord  Grey.  Even  to  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's omniscience  there  are  limits.  But  he  de- 
sired to  know,  and  when  he  had  heard  a  little  of 
Lord  Grey's  history,  said  joyfully:  "All  right; 
we  have  subjects  in  common  and  ideas  too."  So 
the  doors  of  the  White  House  opened  wide  to  the 
Governor-General,  and  Lord  Grey  was  the  Presi- 
dent's guest,  and  the  impression  in  Canada  was  a 
good  impression. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

LORD     KITCHENER — PERSONAL     TRAITS     AND 
INCIDENTS 

IT  does  not  appear  that  Lord  Kitchener's  refusal 
to  accept  the  Mediterranean  post  to  which 
he  was  assigned  has  impaired  his  popularity  or  di- 
minished the  general  confidence  in  him.  Possibly 
even  official  confidence  survives,  in  a  degree. 
The  tone  of  the  Prime  Minister's  replies  to  ques- 
tions about  the  refusal  may  denote  resentment  but 
hardly  censure.  So  I  think  I  may  still  venture  to 
reprint  sundry  personal  reminiscences  which  were 
written  before  this  collision  between  the  great 
soldier  and  the  Prime  Minister — or  was  it  the 
War  Minister? — ^had  occurred. 

"The  greatest  chief -of-staff  living,"  said  the 
Germans  of  Lord  Kitchener;  possibly  with  a 
reservation  in  favour  of  themselves.  They  would 
not  go  beyond  that  limited  panegyric.  The 
remark  was  made  by  a  German  officer,  high  in 
rank,  not  long  after  the  Boer  war,  and  it  was 
Paardeberg  which  rankled  in  his  German  mind 
and  would  not  suffer  him  to  award  to  the  English 
general  a  great  power  of  leadership  in  the  field. 

But  I  believe  German  opinion  on  that  battle  has 

292 


Lord  Kitchener  293 

since  undergone  revision.  Whether  it  has  or  not, 
Lord  Kitchener's  military  renown  can  easily  take 
care  of  itself;  nor  is  it  his  soldiership  which  I  am 
going  to  discuss.  I  happen  to  have  met  him  now 
and  then,  and  what  else  I  have  to  say  about  him  is 
personal.     I  hope  not  too  personal. 

It  was  on  a  journey  from  London  to  Alderbrook, 
Mr.  Ralli's  beautiful  place  in  Sussex,  that  I  first 
saw  Lord  Kitchener.  We  were  a  week-end  party 
and  went  down  together  in  a  saloon  carriage.  The 
figure  which  next  to  Lord  Kitchener's  stands  out 
clearest  is  the  late  Lord  Glenesk's  still  in  the  vigour 
of  his  versatile  powers  and  accomplishments  and 
attractions.  The  occasion  was  the  more  inter- 
esting because  Lord  Kitchener  had  then  lately 
returned  from  Egypt,  and  from  that  victorious 
campaign  which  he,  and  he  alone,  had  planned  and 
carried  through  from  beginning  to  end  in  strict 
fulfilment  of  the  scheme  framed  before  the  actual 
preparations  for  it  had  been  begun.  This  also 
might  induce  our  German  military  friends  to  re- 
consider that  chief-of-staff  opinion  above  quoted. 

It  was  known  that  this  second  hero  of  Khartoum 
• — Gordon  being  the  first — was  to  travel  by  this 
train.  It  was  an  express,  and  there  was  no  stop 
before  Guildford.  But  consider  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  British  people  when  they  have  a  real  hero. 
The  stations  through  which  the  train  thundered  at 
forty  miles  an  hour  were  crowded  with  people. 
They  could  not  get  so  much  as  a  glimpse  of  their 
idol,  but  they  stood  and  cheered  and  waved  their 
hats  to  the  train  and  the  invisible  hero-traveller. 


294  Anglo-American  Memories 

When  we  reached  Guildford  six  or  seven  thousand 
people  thronged  that  station.  They  hurrahed  for 
''Kitchener,"  and  as  the  cries  for  "Kitchener" 
met  with  no  response,  they  were  raised  again  and 
again.  Lord  Kitchener  sat  in  a  comer,  buried  in  a 
rough  grey  overcoat,  silent  and  bored.  He  had 
no  taste  for  "ovations"  and  triumphal  greetings. 
Lord  Glenesk  told  him  he  really  must  show  him- 
self and  acknowledge  these  salutations.  So  Lord 
Kitchener  rose,  with  an  ill  grace,  walked  to  one 
of  the  open  doors  of  the  saloon,  raised  his  hand 
with  a  swift  military  jerk  to  his  bowser,  and  re- 
treated. The  tumult  increased  but  he  would  not 
show  himself  a  second  time.  The  cheers  rolled  on 
without  effect.  The  idol  would  not  be  idolized. 
It  was  not  ill-temper  but  indifference.  He  was 
in  mufti  and  it  was  the  soldier  the  multitude 
demanded  to  see.  In  truth,  Lord  Kitchener's 
appearance  at  the  moment  was  not  military. 
It  was  remarked  by  his  fellow-passengers  that 
he  showed  to  little  advantage  in  his  grey  clothes, 
none  too  well  fitting.  When  evening  came  he 
was  another  man,  just  as  unmistakably  the  soldier 
as  if  in  full  uniform. 

He  was  at  that  time  brooding  over  his  Gor- 
don College  scheme  for  Khartoum.  He  wanted 
£100,000,  and  he  doubted  whether  he  should  get 
it.  In  vain  his  friends  urged  him  to  make  his 
appeal. 

"No,"  said  Lord  Kitchener,  "nothing  less 
than  £100,000  will  be  of  any  use.  It  is  a  large 
sum.     I  should  not  like  to  fail,  and  if  they  gave 


Lord  Kitchener  295 

me  only  part  of  the  amount  I  should  have  to 
return  it." 

He  was  told  that  his  name  would  be  enough. 
It  was  the  psychological  moment.  Delay  would 
only  injure  his  chances.  Lord  Glenesk  offered 
him  £1000  across  the  dinner  table,  and  other  sums 
were  offered  there  and  then,  and  the  support  of 
two  powerful  newspapers  was  promised.  Still  he 
hesitated,  and  still  he  repeated,  "I  should  not 
like  to  fail."     At  last  one  of  the  company  said: 

"Well,  Lord  Kitchener,  if  you  had  doubted 
about  your  campaign  as  you  do  about  this  you 
would  never  have  got  to  Khartoum." 

His  face  hardened  and  his  reply  was  character- 
istic of  the  man: 

"Perhaps  not;  but  then  I  could  depend  on 
myself  and  now  I  have  to  depend  on  the  British 
public." 

But  he  did  ask  for  the  money  and  got  all  and 
more  than  all  he  wanted  with  no  difficulty  what- 
ever. It  appeared  that  the  British  public  also 
was  to  be  depended  on. 

The  United  States  Government  was  at  this 
time  in  some  perplexity  about  the  Philippines, 
where  matters  were  not  going  well.  Lord  Kitch- 
ener asked  what  we  were  going  to  do  about  it  and 
how  we  meant  to  govern  the  1200  islands.  He 
seemed  to  think  they  were  giving  us  more  trouble 
than  they  ought.  I  explained  that  the  business  of 
annexing  territory  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe 
was  a  new  one  to  us,  that  down  to  within  a  few 
years  the  American  Republic  was  self-contained, 


296  Anglo-American  Memories 

that  we  had  therefore  no  machinery  for  the  pur- 
pose, no  civil  or  military  servants  intended  or 
trained  for  distant  duties,  no  traditions,  no  ex- 
perience of  any  kind,  and  no  men.  Whoever  went 
to  the  Philippines  had  to  learn  his  business  from 
the  beginning,  and  the  business  was  a  very  diffi- 
cult one. 

Lord  Kitchener  listened  to  all  this,  thought  a 
moment,  looked  across  the  table,  and  said:  "I 
should  like  to  govern  them  for  you."  And 
although  it  was  not  said  seriously  and  could  not 
be,  it  was  evident  that  Lord  Kitchener  would  very 
well  have  liked  to  take  over  a  job  of  that  kind 
had  it  been  possible.  His  mind  turned  readily 
to  executive,  administrative,  and  creative  work. 
The  task  of  reducing  eight  or  nine  millions  of 
Filipinos  and  other  races  to  order  was  one  for 
which  he  was  fitted. 

Not  long  after  that,  an  American  who  had 
already  once  been  Civil  Governor  of  the  Philippines 
for  a  short  time  resumed  that  post  and  held  it  for 
two  years.  He  won  the  confidence  of  the  people. 
Out  of  chaos  he  brought  order.  He  set  up  an 
administrative  system.  He  treated  the  natives 
justly.  He  brought  them  to  co-operate  with  their 
rulers.  When  he  left,  he  left  behind  him  a  Govern- 
ment incomparably  better  than  the  islands  had 
ever  known.  Life,  liberty,  property,  all  civil  and 
personal  rights,  were  protected.  Progress  had 
begun.  Trade  and  commerce  had  begim  to 
fiotirish  and  have  continued  to  flourish  so  far  as 
tariff   conditions   permit.     Loyalty,    a   sentiment 


Lord  Kitchener  297 

never  before  known,  though  a  plant  of  slow  growth, 
prevails.  Rebellions  are  at  an  end.  The  name 
of  the  American  who  accomplished  all  this,  or 
laid  the  foundations  of  it  all  within  two  years, 
is  Taft.  He  is  now  President  of  the  United 
States. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Lord  Kitchener  was  at  a 
house  in  one  of  the  Southern  counties,  in  1902. 
He  was  then  on  his  way  to  take  up  the  commander- 
ship-in-chief  of  India.  He  drove  over  to  luncheon 
from  another  house  some  sixteen  miles  away. 
Luncheon,  usually  at  i  o'clock,  had  been  put  off 
till  1 .30  because  of  the  distance  he  and  his  friends 
had  to  drive;  a  great  concession.  But  the  roads 
were  heavy  and  they  arrived  just  before  2.  Lord 
Kitchener  said  to  me  as  we  were  going  in:  "Look 
at  me.  I  really  cannot  sit  down  to  lunch  in  all 
this  dirt."  I  suggested  that  he  should  come  to 
my  room.  He  did,  and  after  spending  ten  min- 
utes on  his  toilet  emerged  looking  not  much  less 
the  South  African  campaigner  than  when  he 
began. 

He  said:  "You  don't  seem  to  approve." 

"Oh,  I  was  only  wondering  what  you  had  been 
doing  for  ten  minutes.  But  late  as  we  are  there 
is  one  thing  you  must  see. " 

And  I  took  him  to  the  hall  where  stand  those 
two  figures  in  damascened  armour  inlaid  with 
gold,  Anne  de  Montmorenci  and  the  Constable 
de  Bourbon,  whom  a  Herbert  of  the  sixteenth 
century  had  taken  prisoners.  They  woke  the 
soldier  in  this  dusty  traveller. 


298  Anglo-American  Memories 

"If  I  were  a  Frenchman  I  think  I  should  try 
to  get  them  back." 

"It  has  been  tried.  One  of  their  descendants 
offered  £20,000  for  the  pair,  but  you  see  they  are 
still  here." 

We  found  the  rest  of  the  company  at  table,  where 
a  place  next  his  hostess  was  waiting  for  him.  If 
you  had  seen  Lord  Kitchener  for  the  first  time  you 
would  have  felt  that  his  toilet  did  not  much  mat- 
ter. The  man's  personality  was  the  thing.  There 
are  many  men  who  produce  an  impression  of  power, 
but  with  this  man  it  was  military  power.  You  could 
not  take  him  for  anything  but  a  soldier.  Not  at 
all  the  soldier  as  he  presents  himself  to  the  youth- 
ful imagination.  He  was  not  in  uniform;  no 
English  soldier  ever  is  except  on  duty  or  on  occa- 
sions of  ceremony.  But  it  is  possible  to  be  a 
soldier  without  gold  lace  or  gilt  buttons,  and  to 
appear  to  be.  The  carriage  of  his  head,  rising  out 
of  square  shoulders,  announced  him  a  soldier;  so 
did  his  pale  grey-blue,  steel-blue  eyes,  and  the 
air  of  command;  a  quite  unconscious  air  for  the 
simplicity  of  his  bearing  was  as  remarkable  as 
anything  about  him.  It  has  been  said  he  is  not  a 
natural  leader  of  men,  not  a  man  whom  other  men 
follow  in  the  field  just  because  they  cannot  help  it; 
that  he  does  not  "inspire"  his  soldiers.  I  doubt 
it;  but  even  were  it  so  he  is  a  man  whose  orders 
other  men  must  obey  when  they  are  sent.  His 
pale  steel-blue  eyes  have  in  them  the  hard  light 
of  the  desert.  I  believe,  in  fact,  the  light  of  the 
desert,  which  we  consider  a  poetic  thing,  injured 


Lord  Kitchener  299 

his  eyes.  But  there  is  in  them  that  far-off  look 
as  of  one  whose  sight  has  ranged  over  great  spaces 
for  great  intervals  of  time.  The  races  of  South- 
eastern Europe  and  of  Central  Asia  have  it. 
There  has  been  seen  in  London  a  beautiful  girl 
who  has  it ;  gazing  out,  from  the  graceful  movement 
of  the  waltz,  on  a  distant  horizon  much  beyond 
the  walls  of  a  ballroom. 

Yet  as  Lord  Kitchener  sits  there  talking  at 
luncheon  the  hardness  of  the  face  softens.  The 
merciless  eyes  grow  kindly  and  human;  you  may 
forget,  if  you  like,  the  frontal  attack  at  Paarde- 
berg  and  the  corpse-strewn  plains  of  Omdurman, 
and  remember  only  that  an  English  gentleman  who 
has  made  a  study  of  the  science  of  war  sits  there, 
devoting  himself  to  the  entertainment  of  two 
English  ladies.  It  is  a  picture  which  has  a  charm 
of  its  own.  And  it  is  a  Kitchener  of  whom  you 
hear  none  too  often.  That  is  why  you  hear  of 
him  in  these  social  circumstances  from  m^e.  Most 
men  have  a  human  side  to  them..  Even  "K." 
has,  and  sometimes  allows  it  to  be  seen. 

He  had  a  human  side  when  he  departed  without 
leave  from  the  Military  Academy  at  Woolwich 
to  take  a  look  for  himself  at  what  was  going  on 
near  the  French  frontier  in  July  or  August,  1870, 
when  the  Prussians  were  giving  their  French 
neighbours  a  lesson  in  the  art  of  war.  That 
seemed  to  young  Kitchener  a  lesson  likely  to  be 
more  profitable  than  those  of  Woolwich;  so  he 
went.  It  was  a  grave  breach  of  discipline.  I 
never  heard  how  the  matter  was  settled  but  it 


300  Anglo-American  Memories 

did  not  keep  Kitchener  out  of  the  army  for  he 
entered  the  Royal  Engineers  the  next  year.  But 
I  imagine  we  all  like  him  the  better  for  such  an 
adventure. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

SIR  GEORGE  LEWIS — KING's  SOLICITOR  AND  FRIEND 
A  SOCIAL  FORCE 

LORD  RUSSELL  said  of  him: 
"What  is  most  remarkable  in  Lewis  is  not 
his  knowledge  of  the  law,  which  is  very  great,  nor 
his  skill  in  the  conduct  of  difficult  causes,  in  which 
he  is  unrivalled,  nor  his  tact,  nor  his  genius  for 
compromise.     It  is  his  courage." 

That  was  said  not  long  after  the  Parnell  trial, 
in  which  Lord  Russell — then  Sir  Charles  Russell 
and  afterwards  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England — 
who  had  long  been  at  the  head  of  the  English 
Bar  of  his  own  time,  proved  himself  the  equal  of 
any  advocate  of  any  time.  Yet  he  must  divide 
the  honours  of  that  trial  with  Sir  George  Lewis. 
The  profession,  or  the  two  professions  of  barrister 
and  solicitor,  divided  them  if  the  public  did  not. 
The  public  has  almost  never  the  means  of  judging. 
The  work  of  preparing  a  great  cause  is  carried  on 
in  the  solicitor's  office.  The  barrister  takes  it  up 
ready  made  and  the  way  in  which  he  handles  his 
material  is  seen  of  all  men.  But  no  barrister 
badly  briefed  could  make  much  of  a  complicated 
case.     In  no  trial  was  this  truer  than  in  the  Parnell 

trial.     Parnell  was  perhaps  the  greatest  political 

301 


02  AnCTlo-American  Memories 


'fe 


leader  of  his  time,  and  the  least  scrupulous.  He 
had  a  black  record,  and  the  men  behind  him  a 
blacker.  Not  even  Sir  George  Lewis  could  wash  it 
all  white,  but  without  him  the  judgment  would 
have  gone  far  more  heavily  against  the  Irish 
dictator.  And  if  ever  there  was  a  case  in  which 
Lord  Russell's  eulogy  on  Sir  George  Lewis  was 
to  the  point  it  was  the  Parnell  case.  It  needed  all 
his  courage  in  handling  facts  to  save  his  client 
from  a  condemnation  which  would  have  carried 
with  it  his  banishment  from  public  life.  Mr. 
Gladstone  marked  his  sense  of  the  service  done 
by  making  Mr.  George  Lewis  Sir  George  Lewis. 
The  knighthood  some  years  later  became  a  baron- 
etcy, the  late  King,  I  believe,  suggesting  it. 

For  the  late  King,  while  Prince  of  Wales,  had 
stood  to  the  great  solicitor  in  the  relation  of  client, 
and  this  business  connection  had  become  one  of 
friendship.  They  were  much  together  at  Hom- 
burg,  where  both  spent  three  or  four  weeks  each 
year  for  many  years.  Homburg  is  a  place  where 
the  houses  are  of  glass  and  everything  is  known. 
The  Prince  gave  his  dinners  at  Ritter's  or  at  the 
Kursaal  in  the  open  air.  If  he  went  afterward  to 
play  whist — for  these  were  ante-bridge  days — 
at  Mr.  Lewis's  rooms,  that  was  known.  Nor  is 
publicity,  so  far  as  Prince  and  King  are  concerned, 
much  less  in  England,  and  when  Mr.  Lewis  dined 
at  Marlborough  House,  or  was  present  at  a  levee 
at  St.  James's  Palace,  or  was  a  guest  at  Sandring- 
ham,  all  these  things  were  of  common  knowledge. 
And  since  the  English  are  a  very  loyal  people,  who 


Sir  George  Lewis  303 

had  a  strong  personal  attachment  to  their  late 
King,  the  confidence  and  Irking  the  King  showed 
him  won  for  Sir  George  the  confidence  and  liking 
of  others. 

This  great  and  eventful  career  has  lasted  more 
than  fifty  years,  and  with  the  end  of  1909  Sir 
George  Lewis,  being  seventy-six  years  old,  retired 
from  business,  leaving  his  son,  Mr.  George  Lewis, 
and  his  other  partner,  Mr.  Reginald  Poole,  both  for 
many  years  his  associates,  to  be  his  successors. 
Both  are  widely  known  as  learned  and  skilful  in 
the  law;  both  have  been  trained  in  Sir  George's 
methods;  and  the  new  firm  is  still,  like  the  old, 
known  as  Lewis  &  Lewis,  and  they  are  still  of  Ely 
Place,  Holborn. 

It  is  characteristic  of  old  days  and  ways  in  Lon- 
don that  Sir  George  Lewis  was  bom  in  one  of  the 
three  houses  now  occupied  by  the  firm.  His 
father  was  a  solicitor  before  him;  a  man  of  repute 
and  ability,  yet  none  the  less  is  this  vast  business 
the  creation  of  the  son.  There  are  in  London  many 
firms  of  solicitors  known  the  world  over;  the  Messrs. 
Freshfield,  for  example,  solicitors  to  the  Bank  of 
England.  But  there  is  seldom  or  never  a  fame 
due  to  one  man.  It  is  due  to  combined  action,  to 
organization,  to  concentration  upon  one  kind  of 
business.  The  firm  of  Lewis  &  Lewis  knew  no 
limitations.  The  public  thought  of  Sir  George 
Lewis  as  the  man  to  whom  the  conduct  of  great 
causes  was  habitually  entrusted ;  sometimes  crimi- 
nal, sometimes  social,  often  divorce  cases,  often 
those  causes  in  which  the  honour  of  a  great  name 


304  Anglo-American  Memories 

or  a  great  family  is  involved.  True,  but  the  busi- 
ness of  Messrs.  Lewis  &  Lewis  was  first  of  all 
a  great  commercial  business.  Sir  George's  per- 
manent clients  were  among  the  city  firms  famous 
in  finance,  or  in  banking  or  in  industry.  That 
was  the  backbone  of  the  business  and  continues 
to  be. 

The  first  case  in  which  Mr.  Lewis  made  himself 
known  to  the  public  arose  out  of  the  failure  of 
Overend,  Gurney  &  Co.,  then  one  of  the  leading 
houses  in  the  City  of  London.  He  fought  that 
case  single-handed  against  barristers  of  renown; 
a  bold  thing  for  a  solicitor  to  do,  and  perhaps 
without  precedent.  He  did  the  same  thing  in  the 
Bravo  murder  case,  and  held  his  own,  and  more 
than  his  own,  against  Attorney  -  General  and 
Solicitor-General.  No  doubt,  had  he  chosen,  he 
might  have  gone  to  the  Bar  and  become  distin- 
guished at  the  Bar,  but  not  so  had  he  chosen  to 
model  his  life.  He  never  could  have  played  the 
part  he  has,  had  he  done  that.  For  the  dividing 
line  between  solicitor  and  barrister  in  England  is 
just  as  clearly  drawn  as  ever.  You  may  be  one 
or  the  other;  you  cannot  be  both;  you  may  pass 
from  one  to  the  other,  but  you  must  elect  between 
the  two. 

I  ask  myself  sometimes  what  London  society 
would  be  to-day  had  there  been  no  Sir  George 
Lewis.  It  certainly  would  not  be  what  it  is. 
There  have  been  many,  many  causes  celebres  in 
which  his  name  has  figured  in  open  court,  or  in 
the  still  more  open  newspapers.     But  they  are  as 


Sir  George  Lewis  305 

one  to  a  hundred  of  those  which  have  never  been 
tried,  and  never  suppHed  material  for  legal  pro- 
ceedings or  for  printed  scandal.  The  simple  truth 
is  that  Sir  George  Lewis,  though  the  most  success- 
ful of  solicitors  in  contested  causes,  has  made 
fame  and  fortune  by  keeping  cases  out  of  court 
and  out  of  print.  He  carried  the  art  of  compro- 
mise to  its  highest  point.  He  saw  that  alike  in 
the  interests  of  his  clients  and  of  the  public,  and 
in  his  own  interest  also,  the  greatest  service  he 
could  do  was  to  prevent  litigation.  On  that  he 
has  acted  consistently  for  fifty  years. 

Of  how  many  lawyers  can  anything  like  that 
be  said?  Sir  George  Lewis  stands  alone.  The 
money  results  of  his  policy  are  splendid.  His  re- 
nown is  splendid  But  the  misery  he  has  soothed 
and  the  social  disruptions  and  disturbances  and 
far-reaching  disasters  he  has  prevented  are  a  tri- 
bute more  splendid  still.  And  perhaps  never  has 
the  value  of  his  advice  been  so  evident  as  when  it 
has  been  rejected. 

In  the  matter  which  shook  London  society 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  of  recent  years.  Sir 
George  Lewis  on  one  side,  and  a  brilliant  young 
solicitor,  Mr.  Charles  Russell,  son  of  the  late  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  on  the  other,  had  come  to  an  agree- 
ment. The  instrument  they  had  drawn  jointly 
was  ready  for  signature.  So  quietly  had  all  this 
distressing  business  been  transacted  that,  had  the 
instrument  been  signed  then  and  there,  the  world 
would  never  have  heard  there  had  been  a  disagree- 
ment till  it  learned  there  had  been  a  settlement. 


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But  outside  influences  intervened.  One  of  the 
two  signatures  was  withheld.  Then  scandal  broke 
loose  and  the  sewers  of  London  overflowed  all 
winter.  There  were  reproaches,  recriminations, 
divisions;  all  London  taking  one  side  or  the  other. 
Then  in  the  spring  the  same  instrument,  word  for 
word,  was  signed.  The  solicitors  had  never  wav- 
ered nor  perhaps  ever  doubted  that  since  they 
were  agreed  their  clients  must  ultimately  agree. 
It  is  a  typical  example  of  Sir  George  Lewis's 
methods.  But  the  mischief  that  had  been  done 
by  intruders  could  not  be  undone. 

Sleeping  for  half  a  century,  or  for  only  years  and 
months,  in  the  black  japanned  tin  boxes  which 
line  the  walls  in  Ely  Place  and  in  his  safes  were 
papers  enough  to  compromise  half  London  and 
scandalize  the  other  half.  Sir  George,  reflecting 
some  years  ago  on  this  state  of  things,  looked 
through  the  collection  and  then  burnt  the  whole. 
That  is  the  best  possible  answer  to  the  foolish 
story  that  he  intended  writing  his  memoirs. 
His  sense  of  professional  etiquette  and  his  sense 
of  honour  may  both  be  judged  in  the  light  of  these 
flaming  documents.  It  had  been  necessary,  of 
course,  to  preserve  some  of  these  papers  for  a 
time,  on  the  chance  of  their  being  needed  again. 
But  think  of  the  relief  with  which  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  people  heard  of  the  burning!  It  is 
almost  as  if  the  tragedies  of  which  all  record  was 
thus  destroyed  had  never  happened.  * 

'  I  have  since  asked  Sir  George  himself  about  this  conflagration 
story.  He  answered:  "Yes,  it  is  true,  but  there  are  things  here" — 
touching  his  forehead — "which  I  can  neither  burn  nor  forget." 


Sir  George  Lewis  307 

Sir  George  Lewis  could  coerce  as  well  as  coax. 
He  could  use  threats,  but  never  a  threat  he  was 
not  ready  to  fulfil.  By  and  by  his  character 
came  to  be  so  well  understood  that  a  letter  from 
Ely  Place  became  almost  a  summons  to  surrender. 
But  always  on  reasonable  terms.  With  all  that, 
he  had  a  kindness  of  heart  to  which  thousands  of 
people  can  testify.  I  suppose  no  lawyer  ever  did 
so  much  for  clients  without  fee  or  reward.  If  you 
were  his  friend,  if  you  were  of  a  profession,  if  you 
came  to  him  with  a  letter  from  some  friend,  if 
you  came  to  him  in  poverty  with  a  case  of  oppres- 
sion, he  would  take  infinite  pains  for  you  and  no 
fee.  He  had  all  sorts  of  out-of-the-way  knowledge ; 
copyright  law,  for  one,  on  which  he  was  an  author- 
ity, and  in  which  few  solicitors  are  authorities. 
There  is  this  link  between  copyright  in  books  and 
in  plays  and  theatrical  contracts;  the  contract  is 
commonly  drawn  by  the  publisher  or  manager, 
who  is  a  man  of  business;  and  the  author  or 
actor,  who  is  not,  is  expected  to  accept  it.  It 
was  this  solicitor's  pleasure  to  redress  that  balance. 

He  was  a  law  reformer.  Again  unlike  most 
successful  men  who  are  apt  to  be  content  with 
things  as  they  are.  The  letters  he  wrote  to  TJie 
Times  on  such  matters  as  the  creation  of  a  Court 
of  Criminal  Appeal,  alteration  in  the  law  of 
divorce,  the  administration  of  Justice,  and  other 
high  legal  questions  show  him  a  great  scientific 
lawyer,  with  a  mastery  of  principles.  He  has 
essentially  a  legal  mind,  and  he  wrote  with  a 
luminous  precision  and  force  not  always  character- 
istic of  the  legal  mind.     And  he  had  what  ever}'- 


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judge  on  the  bench  ought  to  have,  and  a  few  of 
the  greatest  really  have,  an  unerring  perception 
of  such  facts  as  are  essential,  and  a  power  of  dis- 
missing all  the  rest.  Sir  George  Jessel  had  that; 
one  of  the  greatest  judges.  Students  of  ethnology 
may  remark  with  interest  that  both  were  Jews. 
When  such  a  man  quits  the  stage  it  is  an  irre- 
parable loss  to  his  friends,  to  his  clients,  and  to  the 
world  generally.  The  feeling  is  more  than  regret, 
for  ties  are  broken  which  never  existed  before 
and  will  never  exist  again.  Sir  George  Lewis's 
position  was  unique  because  his  personality  is 
unique.  So  will  his  fame  be.  Reputation  in  the 
law  is  for  the  most  part  transitory.  But  this 
will  endure. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

MR.  MILLS — ^A  PERSONAL  APPRECIATION  AND  A  FEW 
ANECDOTES 

T  RECROSS  the  Atlantic  for  a  moment.  There 
*  died  lately  in  California  a  man  known  on  both 
sides  of  the  ocean,  known  in  more  worlds  than 
two,  one  of  the  strongest  and  certainly  one  of  the 
most  amiable  figures  in  the  world  of  business, 
Mr.  Darius  Ogden  Mills. 

Of  late  years,  since  Mr.  Reid  has  been  Ambas- 
sador, Mr.  Mills  had  become  a  figure  in  London. 
He  interested  Englishmen  because  he  was  a  new 
type,  or,  rather,  because  he  was  individual;  be- 
cause he  was  Mr.  Mills.  Type  implies  a  plurality ; 
and  not  only  was  there  but  one  Mills,  there  was 
none  other  to  whom  you  could  compare  him. 
Englishmen  have  formed  a  notion  of  their  own 
about  Americans  of  the  class  to  which,  in  respect 
of  his  wealth,  Mr.  Mills  belonged;  and  a  high 
notion.  They  have  seen  much,  for  example,  of 
Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan,  and  they  seemed  inclined 
to  suppose  all  great  financiers  to  be,  in  manner 
as  in  fact,  masterful,  dominating,  huge  in  physique, 
born  rulers  of  other  men.  They  had  never  seen 
much,  if  anything,  of  Mr.  Harriman,  who  hid 
away  his   great  qualities  beneath  a  personality 

309 


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almost  insignificant  in  appearance  save  for  the 
ample  head  and  burning  eyes. 

Mr.  Mills  was  perceived  to  be  like  neither  of 
these,  nor  like  any  third.  He  was  much  more 
like  an  Oxford  professor;  like  the  late  Rev.  Mark 
Pattison,  rector  of  Lincoln,  the  Casaubon  of 
George  Eliot's  novel.  Mr.  Mills  had  the  gentle- 
ness, the  refinement,  the  distinction  of  the  scholar. 
It  must  have  been  born  with  him.  He  went  to  no 
college.  He  had  little  college  learning.  He  had 
lived  in  rough  times  and  among  rough  men;  had 
twice  crossed  the  continent  on  foot  and  in  the 
saddle,  with  a  cloud  of  Red  Indians  ever  on  the 
horizon,  and  had  lived  in  San  Francisco  during 
those  stormy  years  when  Bret  Harte's  heroes, 
gamblers,  and  rufiians  set  up  their  turbulent  rule. 
But  there  was  a  light  in  Mr.  Mills's  pale  blue  eyes 
which  kept  those  gentlemen  at  a  distance.  This 
delicately -featured  face  ended  in  a  jaw  which  was 
an  index  of  a  character  not  to  be  trifled  with. 

Upon  all  this  London  remarked  with  some  sur- 
prise, and  then  with  great  respect  and  liking. 
They  liked  his  simplicity  of  manner  as  much  as 
his  sagacity  of  speech,  and  his  silence  almost  as 
much  as  his  conversation.  An  American  who  was 
an  American  to  the  finger-tips  but  never  waved 
the  flag ;  a  man  of  affairs  who  seemed  in  the  world 
only  a  man  of  the  world;  a  millionaire  in  whose 
pockets  the  jingle  of  the  dollar  was  never  heard; 
such  was  the  rare  picture  Mr.  Mills  presented. 
He  won  their  sympathies  because  he  never  tried 
to.     These  islanders  like  a  man  who  is  just  him- 


Mr.  Mills  311 

self,  yet  is  absolutely  free  from  self-assertion. 
They  gave  him  first  their  respect,  then  their 
regard,  and  finally  their  affection. 

I  have  seen  all  these  feelings  shown  in  the  Metro- 
politan Club  in  New  York  in  an  unusual  way. 
Mr.  Mills  used  to  come  into  the  card-room  of  an 
afternoon.  There  would  be  two  or  three  or  more 
rubbers  of  bridge  going  on.  Bridge  is  a  passion, 
but  men  would  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  rubber  and 
ask  Air.  Mills  if  he  would  not  take  a  hand  or  make 
up  a  new  rubber.  Bridge  being  not  only  a  passion 
but  the  selfish  game  it  is — necessarily  so,  like 
business — the  tribute  was  a  remarkable  one.  If  he 
declined,  somebody  would  remember  suddenly  he 
had  an  engagement  and  beg  Mr.  Mills  as  a  favour 
to  take  his  place.  As  he  moved  about  in  the  club 
men  rose  and  walked  across  the  room  to  greet  him, 
a  thing  less  rare  in  New  York  but  unknown  in 
London,  where  a  club  has  been  defined  as  a  place 
in  which  a  man  may  cut  his  best  friend  and  no 
offence  taken.  The  general  ceremoniousness  of 
club  life  in  New  York  would  close  all  the  club- 
houses in  London.  So  would  the  despotism  of 
New  York  club  committees. 

Men  listened  to  him  or  waited  for  him  to  speak 
in  a  way  which  suggested  not  only  a  desire  for 
an  opinion  but  an  attachment  to  the  man.  He 
himself  was  one  of  the  best  listeners  ever  known. 
When  he  spoke  it  was  briefly.  He  could  say  what 
he  wanted  to  in  a  sentence  or  a  few  sentences. 
In  this  he  was  like  another  and  a  greater  Oxford 
Don — I  suppose  the  greatest  of  his  time — ^Jowett, 


12  Anelo- American  Memories 


't> 


the  Master  of  Balliol.  Both  sat  long  silent  while 
others  were  talking  and  both  seemed  to  use,  and 
Jowett  certainly  did  use,  the  interval  in  fashioning 
his  thoughts  into  epigrams.  Jowett's  epigrams 
often  stung,  and  were  meant  to  sting,  for  he 
thought  presumption  and  ignorance  ought  to 
be  punished.  Perhaps  Mr.  Mills  did  but  he  did 
not  think  he  had  been  appointed  to  punish  them. 

A  group  of  men  in  the  club  were  one  day  dis- 
cussing great  fortunes  and  the  men  who  owned 
them.  Everybody  thought  and  spoke  in  millions 
and  tens  of  millions.  Finally  some  one  appealed 
to  the  only  silent  man  in  the  company. 

"What  do  you  say,  Mr.  Mills?" 

"I  say  that  in  all  these  cases,  or  almost  all,  I 
think  it  safe  to  divide  the  figures  by  two. " 

"In  your  own  case  also?" 

"Above  all  in  my  case." 

We  travelled  up  together  once  by  the  night 
express  to  the  Adirondacks  on  a  visit  to  Mr.  Reid's 
camp,  arriving  at  the  station  at  six  in  the  morning; 
then  driving  to  the  lake ;  then  in  a  boat  to  the  camp, 
which  could  not  be  reached  otherwise.  After  his 
long  night  journey  he  was  fresh  and  alert  and  not 
the  least  tired,  and  he  talked  freely.  He  even 
discussed  business,  and  presently  remarked: 

"I  have  been  a  little  anxious  about  money 
matters  and  was  not  sure  I  could  get  away 
from  New  York. " 

"But  why?" 

"Oh,  my  bank  balances  are  much  larger  than  I 
like  them  to  be. " 


Mr.  Mills  313 

I  made  the  obvious  and  rather  foolish  answer 
that  there  were  plenty  of  people  who  would  be 
willing  to  relieve  him  from  this  anxiety,  to  which 
he  retorted : 

"You  know  nothing  about  it.  I  am  not  speak- 
ing of  myself.  But  a  man  in  my  position  has  his 
duties  as  trustee  for  others  to  consider.  Whether 
I  get  three  per  cent  or  four  per  cent  for  my  money 
may  not  much  matter,  though  I  prefer  five,  but  to 
many  of  those  for  whom  I  act  it  does  matter,  and 
to  them  I  am  imder  an  obligation  I  must  fulfil.  No 
man  who  is  not  or  has  not  been  in  business  can 
have  any  notion  of  the  ramifications  and  compli- 
cations of  business.  But  it  's  worth  your  while 
to  consider  that. " 

It  was  the  longest  speech  I  had  ever  heard  him 
make,  and  the  didactic  touch  at  the  end  was  equally 
new.  It  was  not  his  way  to  lecture  people.  He 
held  strong,  considered  opinions  on  many  sub- 
jects, but  thought  it  no  part  of  his  duty  to  impress 
them  on  the  world,  though  his  sure  judgment  was 
at  the  service  of  his  friends.  His  fame  and  wealth 
and  position  had  come  to  him  from  what  he  had 
done,  not  by  sermonizing  or  rhetoric.  Men  trusted 
him.  There  was  perhaps  no  man  more  generally 
trusted.  It  is  nothing  to  say  he  never  betrayed  a 
trust.  He  discharged  it  to  the  utmost  measure  of 
his  ability.  The  money  which  others  had  put 
into  his  hands  had  to  earn  as  much  as  money  could 
earn.  Three  per  cent  on  deposits  would  seem  to 
an  Englishman  affluence,  but  Mr.  Mills  appeared 
to  think  he  was  unfair  to  his  clients  to  be  content, 


314  Anglo-American  Memories 

even  temporarily,  with  tliree  when  it  could  be 
invested  to  earn  more. 

At  the  camp  he  talked  more  freely  than  else- 
where. The  air  was  tonic;  the  life  suited  him. 
In  the  Adirondacks  you  do  get  back  into  closer 
relations  with  Nature  and  on  more  intimate 
terms  with  the  great  natural  forces  about  you. 
This  is  true  in  spite  of  the  luxurious  simplicity  of 
the  camps.  But  Mr.  Mills  was  always  happy 
where  his  daughter  was.  I  may  not  dwell  on 
such  a  matter  but  her  devotion  to  him  was  the 
light  of  his  life.  He  came  to  London  to  be  with 
her.  She  returned  to  America  to  be  with  him.  If 
his  duties  and  responsibilitieshadpermitted,  his  vis- 
its here  would  have  been  longer  and  m^ore  frequent. 

Once  while  I  w^as  sitting  with  him  in  his  office  in 
Broad  Street  his  lawyer  came  in  with  a  contract 
for  him  to  sign.  Mr.  Mills  hardly  glanced  at  it,  took 
up  his  pen  to  sign,  stopped,  and  said  to  the  lawyer: 

"I  suppose  it  is  all  right?" 

"Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Mills.  I  think  you  will  find  your 
interests  protected  in  every  way. " 

"That  is  not  what  I  mean.  I  want  to  know 
whether  you  have  drawn  this  agreement  so  as  to 
leave  Mr.  A  a  profit  large  enough  to  ensure  his 
doing  his  best.     He  must  have  his  fair  share. " 

A  business  view,  perhaps,  and  for  aught  I  know 
common  in  the  business  world,  but  I  had  never 
happened  to  hear  it  put  quite  like  that,  nor  have 
I  since. 

With  that  may  be  compared  another  saying. 
A  little  company,  all  men  of  business  but  me,  were 


Mr.  Mills  315 

discussing  business  methods.  One  or  two  of  them 
stated  rather  crudely  what  are  sometimes  called 
the  methods  of  Wall  Street.  "There  is  no  senti- 
ment in  business, "  said  one.  "A  man  who  thinks 
of  others'  interests  will  soon  have  none  of  his  own 
to  consider,"  remarked  a  second.  And  a  third, 
whose  career  was  strewn  with  wrecks,  declared: 
"Of  course  you  have  to  crush  those  who  stand  in 
your  way. "     Said  Mr.  Mills : 

"I  have  done  pretty  well  in  business  but  I 
never  crushed  anybody. " 

The  Mills  hotels  were  an  expression  of  his  senti- 
ment toward  the  society  amid  which  he  lived;  to 
the  environment  which  had  given  him  his  later 
opportunities.  He  wanted  to  enlarge  the  oppor- 
tunities of  other  men,  to  sweeten  their  lives  a  little, 
to  enable  them  to  do  more  for  themselves.  His 
scheme  was  derided  and  was  a  success  from  the 
start,  and  the  success  has  grown  greater  ever  since. 
The  success  was  due  to  the  patience  with  which 
he  thought  out  his  plans.  The  afternoon  before  I 
sailed  from  New  York,  in  1906,  I  met  Mr.  Mills  in 
his  victoria  at  the  door  of  the  Metropolitan  Club. 
"Come  for  a  drive  in  the  park,"  he  said,  and  we 
went.  He  began  at  once  to  talk  about  his  new 
hotel.  We  drove  for  two  hours  and  during  nearly 
all  that  time  he  discussed  plans,  estimates,  details, 
methods  of  economical  working,  organization,  the 
effect  on  the  tenants,  and  a  hundred  other  matters 
relating  to  the  building,  equipment,  and  operation 
of  the  hotel  soon  to  be  erected. 

He  had  all  the  facts  and  figures  in  his  mind.   He 


3i6  Anglo-American  Memories 

talked  with  an  enthusiasm  he  rarely  showed.  His 
heart  was  in  it. 

To  the  last  his  energies  seemed  inexhaustible; 
and  his  interests.  He  arrived  one  afternoon  at 
Dorchester  House  at  five  o'clock  from  New  York. 
There  was  a  large  dinner  at  8.30,  then  a  ball  which 
he  did  not  leave  till  toward  one  in  the  morning. 
I  met  him  again  at  tea  next  day  and  he  told  me  he 
had  been  at  the  White  City  since  nine  that  morn- 
ing, and  when  I  suggested  that  he  had  gone  about 
that  marvellous  but  very  fatiguing  show  in  a 
chair,  he  said:  "Oh,  no,  on  my  legs. "  Nor  did  he 
seem  tired  nor  mind  the  prospect  of  another  large 
dinner  that  night.  He  was  then  eighty-two  years 
old.  Pneumonia  had  attacked  him  winter  after 
winter,  but  he  always  rallied  and  would  take  no 
better  care  of  himself  than  before. 

In  that  slight,  erect  figure  Nature  had  packed 
powers  of  endurance  which  bigger  frames  had  not. 
Everything  was  reduced  to  its  essence.  There  was 
nothing  superfluous  and  nothing  wanting.  The 
features  were  sculptiu-ed.  It  was  the  face  of  a 
man  who  had  a  real  distinction  of  nature;  who 
had  benignity  and  judgment  and  acute  perceptions 
all  in  equal  measure.  They  bore  the  stamp  of  an 
impregnable  integrity,  as  his  life  did.  Unlike 
qualities  in  him  melted  into  harmony  and  a  rounded 
whole.  For  with  his  unyielding  firmness  and 
strength  and  uncompromising  convictions  and 
invincible  sense  of  justice  went  a  loving  kindness 
which  made  him  the  most  lovable  of  men.  That 
was  Mr.  Mills. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

LORD    RANDOLPH    CHURCHILL — BEING    MOSTLY 
PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 


I  VENTURE  on  an  anecdote  or  two,  which  I  have 
told  elsewhere  but  imperfectly,  those  whom  it 
concerns  being  now  dead  or  retired.  They  were 
three;  Mr.  Chamberlain,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill, 
and  Mr.  Archibald  Forbes;  all  at  that  moment  in 
the  splendour,  the  blinding  splendour,  of  their 
gifts  and  powers.  It  was  after  limcheon.  The 
ladies  had  gone.  Lord  Randolph  had  been  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  India,  and  Forbes,  like  Lord 
Randolph,  had  lately  been  in  India,  and  the  talk 
turned  upon  India.  All  three  were  men  who 
spoke  their  minds ;  not  at  all  an  uncommon  practice 
in  this  country,  where  m_en  dissent  freely,  and  even 
bluntly,  from  the  expressed  opinion  of  others,  and 
no  offence  taken.  Lord  Randolph  and  Forbes 
differed  sharply.  Neither  stood  in  awe  of  the 
other,  or  of  any  man.  Forbes  would  make  a 
statement.     Lord  Randolph  would  answer: 

"I  know  you  have  been  in  India  but  from  what 
you  say  I  should  n't  suppose  you  knew  where  it 

was. " 

317 


3i8  Anglo-American  Memories 

Lord  Randolph  would  go  on  to  point  out  what 
he  thought  Forbes's  mistakes;  then  Forbes: 

"Yes,  you  have  ruled  India  but  the  real  India  is 
a  sealed  book  to  you." 

And  so  on.  Presently  they  discussed  the  Indian 
Civil  Service  and  Mr.  Chamberlain  came  to  the 
front.  In  the  new  Civil  Service  lay,  he  thought, 
the  hope  of  India.  Appointments  were  no  longer 
jobbed.  A  new  class  of  men  were  brought  into 
the  service  by  examination,  weU  taught,  well 
trained,  competent,  and  drawn  from  the  whole 
people  of  England.  Lord  Randolph  Hstened  im- 
patiently, interrupted  now  and  then,  but  on  the 
whole  listened.  When  Mr.  Chamberlain  had 
finished  Lord  Randolph  burst  out: 

"I  have  heard  that  before.  No  greater  non- 
sense was  ever  talked.  What  is  the  Indian  Civil 
Service;  or  rather,  what  was  it?  A  boy  of  twenty 
went  out  as  a  clerk.  From  Calcutta  he  was  sent  up 
country,  nominally  in  charge  of  a  bureau,  really  to 
govern  a  district.  He  did  govern  it.  He  had 
passed  no  examination.  Very  likely  he  could  n't 
tell  you  the  date  of  the  battle  of  Plassey  or  the 
lineage  of  a  native  Prince.  He  had  no  mathe- 
matics, no  Latin,  and  probably  could  n't  spell. 
But  he  had  character.  He  knew  how  to  govern 
because  he  came  of  a  governing  class.  And  he 
was  a  gentleman." 

"Whereas  now" — looking  steadily  at  Chamber- 
lain— "instead  of  gentlemen  you  get  men  from — 
Birmingham  and  God  knows  where." 

Mr.    Chamberlain,    who   seldom   declined   any 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  319 

contest  to  which  he  was  invited,  sat  cool  and 
smiling  while  Lord  Randolph  launched  his  shafts. 
When  he  had  emptied  his  quiver  the  member  for 
Birmingham,  still  cool  and  smiling,  observed  that 
he  thought  it  was  time  for  us  to  join  the  ladies; 
and  we  did.  Instantly  the  sky  cleared.  India 
was  forgotten.  The  two  combatants  walked 
upstairs  arm  in  arm,  and  the  storm  was  as  if  it 
had  never  been. 

The  Httle  scene  in  which  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill  was  the  chief  actor  brings  that  vivid  per- 
sonality once  again  vividly  to  mind.  Indeed,  it  is 
never  long  absent  from  the  general  memory.  He 
has  left  a  mark  on  the  public  life  of  this  country 
which  will  last  as  long  as  anything  lasts.  And  he 
has  left  a  portrait  of  himself  in  the  memory  of  all 
who  really  knew  him.  Besides  which,  he  has  left 
a  son  who  does  not  allow  us  long  to  forget  his  ex- 
istence or  his  relation  to  the  affairs  of  the  moment. 
A  great  authority  was  quoted  quite  lately  as 
saying,  "Winston  is  an  abler  man  even  than  his 
father."  I  asked  him  whether  he  said  it.  "No, 
I  said  cleverer,  not  abler,"  which  seemed  a  very 
just  distinction. 

I  have  not  really  much  to  add  to  the  account  of 
Lord  Randolph  which  I  wrote  in  January,  1895, 
upon  his  death.  I  adhere  to  all  I  then  said.  The 
estimate  seems  to  me  fair,  if  not  complete.  The 
years  that  have  passed  take  nothing  from  Lord 
Randolph's  fame.  If  anything,  they  add  to  it. 
And  for  this  reason:  his  conception  of  the  politi- 
cal future  of  his  country  was  a  true  conception. 


320  Anp^lo-American  Memories 


To  him  the  year  1884,  with  its  revolutionary  en- 
largement of  the  suffrage,  was  the  turning  point 
of  modern  English  history.  The  middle  classes 
vacated  the  throne  they  had  occupied  since  1832. 
The  working  classes  succeeded  to  their  inheritance. 
Their  power  has  steadily  grown.  They  are  two- 
thirds  of  the  electorate  to-day.  They  have,  it  is 
true,  but  30  out  of  670  Members  of  Parliament, 
but  these  figures  are  in  no  respect  representative 
of  their  real  authority.  They  and  the  Irish 
Nationalists  hold  the  balance  of  power  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  They  returned  fewer  mem- 
bers to  the  House  this  year  than  in  1906,  but  that 
was  because  of  an  arrangement  between  them  and 
the  Liberals — for  value  received.  And  no  man 
doubts  that  the  power  of  the  Labour  Party  will 
hereafter  increase  and  not  decrease.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  England  they  openly  pro- 
claim their  purpose  to  legislate  and  to  influence 
legislation  in  the  interest  of  a  single  class  and  not 
in  the  interest  of  all  classes  and  of  the  country  as  a 
whole.  Their  excuse  is  that  they  are  a  majority. 
But  the  day  when  a  majority  takes  no  account  of 
the  minority,  or  thinks  a  minority  has  no  rights 
which  the  majority  is  bound  to  respect  is  a  black 
day  in  the  history  of  any  countr>^ 

But  this,  in  substance  if  not  in  detail  is  what  Lord 
Randolph  foresaw  and  announced;  and  he  was 
the  only  man  to  foresee  it.  He  did  not  disdain,  as 
Mr.  Gladstone  did,  to  look  ahead,  to  form  to  him- 
self some  conception  of  what  the  future  of  England 
was  to  be  with  this  rising  tide  of   Democracy. 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  321 

His  conception,  as  I  said,  was  a  true  conception, 
and  the  political  genius  of  the  man  was  never  more 
clearly  visible  than  in  this  forecast,  and  in  the 
means  he  proposed  to  himself  and  to  his  party  for 
dealing  with  a  situation  absolutely  new. 

Lord  Randolph's  Dartford  speech  in  1886  will 
therefore  remain  a  monument  to  his  sagacity. 
It  was  a  speech  which  may  be  read  to-day  with 
profit  and  admiration.  So  may  that  at  Birming- 
ham, of  which  "Trust  the  People"  is  the  motto. 
I  will  go  farther.  If  I  wanted  a  body  of  political 
doctrine  to  put  into  the  hands  of  an  American 
student  of  English  politics  I  would  as  soon  offer 
him  Lord  Randolph's  speeches  as  any  other.  There 
is  no  complete  collection  but  there  are  the  two 
volumes  edited  by  Mr.  Louis  Jennings  and  pub- 
lished by  Messrs.  Longmans  in  1889.  They  cover 
a  period  of  only  nine  years,  1880-8,  but  they  are 
a  handbook  to  the  political  life  of  England  for  a 
generation.  Lord  Randolph  had  this  rare  merit — 
rare  in  this  country — he  dealt  habitually  with 
principles,  and  his  treatment  of  political  questions 
was  not  empirical  but  scientific.  And  he  was 
absolutely  fearless. 

He  was  fearless  alike  in  public  and  private,  and 
he  looked  his  own  fortunes  in  the  face  whether  they 
presented  themselves  to  him  with  the  promise  of 
good  or  of  ill.  He  knew  he  was  a  doomed  man.  He 
cast  his  own  horoscope  shortly  before  he  flung  that 
fatal  card  upon  the  table  which  lost  him  the  game 
in  his  long  contest  with  Lord  Salisbury.     He  said : 

"I  shall  be  five  years  in  office  or  in  opposition. 


322  Anglo-American  Memories 

Then  I  shall  be  five  years  Prime  Minister.  Then 
I  shall  die." 

And  he  was  right  as  to  the  length  of  his  life 
though  a  perverse  fate  and  his  one  fatal  miscal- 
culation, "I  forgot  Goschen,"  falsified  the  rest  of 
his  prediction.  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  queries 
this  saying  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  authentic. 

Many  of  these  matters  I  used  to  hear  Lord 
Randolph  discuss  in  private,  and  even  now  I  sup- 
pose they  must  remain  private  though  the  im- 
pression his  talks  left  may  fairly  be  described. 
I  listened  to  his  views  on  finance — long  before 
he  was  Finance  Minister — through  nearly  the 
whole  of  a  long  simimer  afternoon.  We  were  at 
Cliveden.  That  beautiful  possession  had  not 
then  passed  into  Mr.  Astor's  hands.  It  still 
belonged  to  the  Duke  of  Westminster,  and  had 
been  lent  by  him  to  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough — 
widow  of  that  seventh  Duke  of  Marlborough  who 
was  Viceroy  of  Ireland — and  Lord  Randolph's 
mother.  The  Duchess  was  a  woman  who  may 
always  be  adduced  in  support  of  the  theory  that 
qualities  of  mind  and  character  descend  from 
mother  to  son.  She  was  a  woman  of  great  natural 
shrewdness  and  force,  with  an  insight  into  the 
true  nature  of  such  things  as  interested  her ;  and 
the  one  thing  that  interested  her  above  all  others 
was  her  second  son,  Lord  Randolph. 

"Come  for  a  drive  after  lunch,"  said  Lord 
Randolph,  and  we  went  in  a  dog-cart  to  Bumham 
Beeches  and  Taplow  and  elsewhere  for  many 
miles  and  hours  through  the  woods  which  are  one 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  323 

of  the  glories  of  that  delightful  country.  It  was 
a  perfect  afternoon.  You  were  not  the  least  dis- 
posed to  ask  with  Lowell,  "What  is  so  rare  as  a 
day  in  June?"     Rather: 

In  the  afternoon  they  came  unto  a  land 
In  which  it  seemed  always  afternoon. 

And  always  June.  That  is  one  of  the  enchant- 
ments of  this  versatile  climate.  When  in  a  good 
mood  you  think  it  will  be  always  good.  And  the 
enchantments  in  and  about  Cliveden  were  many 
and  to-day  are  many  more. 

To  all  of  them  Lord  Randolph  seemed  for  the 
moment  insensible.  His  mind  was  upon  Finance, 
and  upon  Finance  he  discoursed  during  the  better 
part  of  three  hours.  To  the  sunlight  and  the 
flower-strewn  hedges  and  the  far-stretching  forests 
he  paid  no  more  attention  than  he  did  to  his  driv- 
ing. The  horse  took  his  own  pace,  and  being  a 
well-trained  animal  showed  a  sensible  preference 
for  his  own  side  of  the  road. 

Lord  Randolph's  talk  was  not  much  more  than 
thinking  aloud.  His  financial  opinions  which  be- 
came afterward,  like  those  of  all  Chancellors  of 
the  Exchequer,  rigid,  were  in  process  of  formation. 
Now  and  then  he  asked  a  question  about  the 
Treasury  in  America  but  for  the  most  part  his 
monologue  was  a  soliloquy.  I  know  few  things 
more  instructive  than  to  see  a  mind  like  his  at 
work.  He  thought  as  he  talked  on,  but  the  sen- 
tences fell  from  his  lips  clean-cut  and  finished.     He 


324  Anglo-American  Memories 

was  not  announcing  conclusions  nor  laying  down 
laws.  Finance  was  then  comparatively  new  to 
him.  He  would  take  up  any  idea  or  view  as  it 
occurred  to  him,  hold  it  before  him,  look  at  it 
from  all  sides,  and  either  drop  it  or  put  it  on  a 
shelf  till  he  could  see  how  it  fitted  with  the  next. 
I  said  as  he  pressed  a  proposal — I  have  forgotten 
what: 

"You  break  with  all  tradition. " 

"What  do  you  suppose  I  am  here  for?  Have 
you  ever  known  me  to  adopt  an  opinion  because 
somebody  else  had  adopted  it?" 

And  in  truth  I  had  not,  nor  had  any  one.  Part 
of  his  charm  lay  in  his  independence;  and  a  large 
part.  He  was  fettered  by  no  restrictions  nor  over- 
borne by  any  authority.  Once  only,  as  he  told 
me  at  another  time,  did  he  find  himself  "in  the 
presence  of  a  superior  being,"  Mr.  Gladstone,  to 
wit.  "I  could  argue,  but  before  the  man  himself 
I  bent."  But  I  have  related  that  story  in  the 
paper  referred  to  above.  Yet  we  find  Lord  Ran- 
dolph telling  Prince  Bismarck,  who  asked  him 
whether  the  English  people  would  exchange  Mr. 
Gladstone  for  General  Caprivi: 

"The  English  people  would  cheerfully  give  you 
Mr.  Gladstone  for  nothing  but  you  would  find 
him  an  expensive  present." 

Of  Prince  Bismarck,  however.  Lord  Randolph 
seems  not  to  have  received  the  same  impression  he 
did  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  high  as  is  the  tribute  he 
pays  him.  There  had  been  a  little  friction.  In 
1888,  in  Berlin,  Prince  Bismarck  had  refused  to  see 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  325 

Lord  Randolph,  or  to  meet  him  at  lunch  at  Count 
Herbert's,  and  he  calls  the  great  Chancellor  a 
grincheux  old  creature  who  kept  away  because 
Lord  Randolph  had  used  all  his  influence  "  to  pre- 
vent Lord  Salisbury  from  being  towed  in  his 
wake."  But  at  Kissingen,  in  1893^ — Lord  Ran- 
dolph, alas,  being  no  longer  in  a  position  to  in- 
fluence, nor  Prince  Bismarck,  alas,  any  longer 
Chancellor  of  the  Empire  he  had  created — there 
was  a  meeting.  Lord  Randolph  wrote  an  account 
of  it  to  his  mother,  and  the  letter,  a  most  pictur- 
esque letter,  is  given  in  the  Life.  Lord  Randolph 
felt  the  fascination  the  Prince  could  exercise  when 
he  chose,  and  pays  due  tribute  to  him.  But 
it  is  admiration,  not  awe,  he  feels  in  the  great 
German's  presence.  In  truth.  Lord  Randolph 
had  said  savage  things  of  Prince  Bismarck  in  days 
past,  as  well  as  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  "If  you  want 
to  sup  with  him  you  must  have  a  long  spoon." 
The  domestic  and  personal  side  of  Lord  Ran- 
dolph had  a  fascination  quite  other  than  that  of 
his  political  life.  Simplicit}^  was  one  note  of  it; 
that  and  the  absolute  freedom  from  affectation 
which  is  natural  to  a  man  whose  courage  is  equal 
to  every  demand.  I  began  meaning  to  be  domes- 
tic and  personal  but  I  shrink  from  saying  most 
of  the  things  I  should  like  to.  Two  summers  in 
succession  he  had  an  old  Elizabethan  house  near 
Egham,  known  as  Great  Forsters;  the  house  still 
encompassed  by  a  moat,  mostly  dry.  I  had 
always  thought  him  at  his  best  in  his  own  home, 
where,  whoever  might  be  his  guest,  he  recognized 


326  Anglo-American  Memories 

his  obligations  as  host,  and  his  manner  softened 
and  the  lawlessness  of  his  tongue  was  restrained. 
This  impression  grew  stronger  with  these  visits. 
It  happened  that  two  of  their  guests,  his  and 
Lady  Randolph's,  were  attractive  to  both  of  them 
as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  two  were 
the  beautiful  Duchess  of  Leinster  and  Sir  Henry 
Drummond  AVolff.  The  Duchess  of  Leinster  was 
at  that  time  in  the  full  splendour  of  her  loveliness. 
I  had  never  seen  her  except  at  a  ball  or  dinner  or 
on  some  other  social  occasion,  in  the  glory  of  a 
toilet  and  of  her  shoulders  and  diamonds,  when 
she  was  perhaps  the  most  resplendent  object  to 
be  seen  in  London.  At  Great  Forsters  she  went 
about  during  the  day  in  the  simplest  of  gowns. 
She  was  less  dazzling  but  not  less  charming.  As 
for  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff,  he  and  Lord 
Randolph  set  each  other  off.  Their  intimacy  was 
both  political  and  personal.  If  I  may  use  such 
a  word  of  two  men,  I  should  say  they  were  on 
affectionate  terms.  Both  of  them  were  capable 
of  cynicism  but  that  only  made  their  affection 
the  more  striking.  There  were  no  ties  of  blood 
but  as  you  looked  on  this  little  group  and  listened 
to  their  talk,  which  was  both  easy  and  brilliant, 
you  felt  as  if  you  were  present  at  a  family  gather- 
ing. 


II 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  despised  two  things 
which    (I    am   told)    are   much   respected   in   the 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  327 

United  States;  public  opinion  and  money.  Of 
course,  in  public  life  he  had  to  take  account  of 
public  opinion  and  he  was  a  very  good  judge  of  it, 
and  in  1886  he  taught  his  party  to  take  account 
of  it.  But  what  I  mean  is  that,  while  he  admitted 
and  asserted  the  necessity  of  calculating  forces 
as  the  first  business  of  a  statesman,  he  was  never 
subservient  to  that  majority  which  he  sought  to 
make  his  own.  He  was  not  frightened  by  names 
and  he  did  not  shrink  from  unpopularity.  He 
told  Prince  Bismarck  at  Kissingen  that  nobody 
in  England  cared  a  rap  what  the  papers  said, 
which  meant  that  he  (Lord  Randolph)  did  not 
care  a  rap.  Yet  at  opportune  moments  he  used 
the  Press  with  skill.  Or,  if  I  ought  not  to  say 
used,  he  ava  led  himself  adroitly  of  the  Press  to 
serve  his  own  purpose.  His  midnight  journey  to 
The  Times  ofhce  in  Printing  House  Square  in  order 
to  tell  Mr.  Buckle  that  he  had  resigned  from  Lord 
Salisbury's  Ministry  and  that  his  resignation  had 
been  accepted  is  a  case  in  point.  It  is  just  con- 
ceivable that  Mr.  Buckle  took,  or  might  have 
taken,  a  more  lenient  view  of  Lord  Randolph's 
coup  de  tete  from  having  the  exclusive  news  of  it. 
It  is,  at  any  rate,  conceivable  that  the  resigning 
Minister  imagined,  or  hoped,  a  friendly  opinion 
would  be  expressed. 

I  will  give  a  very  different  instance  which  came 
to  my  knowledge  directly.  At  the  time  of  the 
great  dock  strike  which  disordered  and  threatened 
to  destroy  all  the  waterside  industries  of  the  port 
of    London,    Cardinal    Manning   sided    with    the 


328  Anglo-American  Memories 

strikers.  He  was  a  prelate  who  often  mixed 
politics  with  his  religion  or,  to  put  it  more  chari- 
tably, with  his  ecclesiastical  polity.  He  went  to 
the  East  End  and  made  a  speech  at  the  strikers' 
meeting,  undeterred  by  the  fact  that  they  were 
threatening  violence,  and  he  wound  up  by  giving 
£25  to  the  cause  of  these  enemies  of  public  order. 

All  this  came  out  in  next  morning's  papers. 
Toward  noon  I  went  to  see  Lord  Randolph.  He 
was  full  of  the  subject  and  his  sympathies  with 
the  men  were  evident.  He  had  read  Cardinal 
Manning's  speech  and,  with  certain  reservations, 
approved  of  it. 

''Do  you  think  he  ought  to  have  given  money 
to  encourage  disorder?" 

"What  do  you  mean  by  _xC0uraging  disorder? 
The  men  are  out  of  work.  They  and  their  wives 
are  starving.  I  would  gladly  give  £25  myself  if 
I  had  it." 

Nevertheless,  I  suppose  no  act  of  Cardinal 
Manning,  nothing  he  did  in  his  extremely  varie- 
gated career,  brought  upon  him  more  or  better 
deserved  censure  in  the  Press  than  the  countenance 
he  gave  to  this  very  dangerous  industrial  rebel- 
lion. The  censure  upon  Lord  Randolph  would 
surely  have  been  not  less  severe.  But  what 
cared  he?  Lord  Randolph,  I  ought  to  add,  had 
been  diu-ing  a  great  part  of  his  too  short  political 
life  the  friend  and  champion  of  the  working  men. 
He  believed  them  to  be  the  necessary  support  of 
the  Conservative  Party  without  which,  as  the 
event   proved,    that    party    could    win    no   great 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  329 

victory  at  the  polls.  He  believed  them  to  be, 
as  a  body,  like  the  majority  of  the  English  people, 
irrespective  of  party,  essentially  Conservative. 
He  was  ready  to  do  what  he  could  to  lighten  and 
brighten  their  sometimes  dreary  lot.  It  was  not 
only  as  a  politician  that  he  interested  himself 
in  their  fortunes.  He  had  a  man's  sympathy 
with  other  men  less  fortunate  than  himself. 

Less  fortunate,  but  perhaps  not  always  much 
less.  For  what  I  said  above  about  Lord  Ran- 
dolph's indifference  to  money  was  true  during 
nearly  all  his  life,  and  was  shown  in  many  ways 
to  his  own  hurt.  He  had  the  usual  younger  son's 
portion,  and  in  this  country  of  magnificent  estates 
the  younger  son's  portion  is  of  the  most  modest 
description.  Not  otherwise  than  by  reserving 
the  great  bulk  of  the  family  wealth  to  eldest  sons, 
one  after  the  other,  can  these  magnificent  estates 
be  kept  together  and  kept  magnificent.  But  Lord 
Randolph's  tastes  and  ambitions  were  nowise  in 
proportion  to  the  slenderness  of  his  income.  The 
present  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  in  his  most  admir- 
able Life  of  his  father  has  made  some  reference 
to  two  occasions  in  which  questions  of  money 
became  critical.  He  has  said  so  much  that  I 
think  I  may  say  a  little  more. 

The  first  was  in  anticipation  of  his  marriage. 
Mr.  Jerome  had  the  ideas  of  the  average  American 
father  about  settlements.  Lord  Randolph's  ideas 
on  that  subject  were  English.  There  was  a  col- 
lision between  the  two.  The  wooer  had  already 
announced  to  his  father,   the  seventh   Duke  of 


330  Anglo-American  Memories 

Marlborough,  his  attachment  to  Miss  Jerome 
and  the  Duke  had  agreed  provisionally  to  the 
engagement.  Mr.  Jerome  had  agreed,  but  his 
views  about  money  threatened  to  break  off  the 
negotiations.  At  the  end — they  had  lasted  seven 
months — Lord  Randolph  ' '  refused  utterly  to  agree 
to  any  settlement  which  contained  even  technical 
provisions  to  which  he  objected."  He  delivered 
to  Mr.  Jerome  what  his  biographer  rightly  calls 
an  ultimatum.  He  was  "ready  to  earn  a  living  in 
England  or  out  of  it"  without  Air.  Jerome's  help, 
and  in  this  the  girl  agreed  with  him.  Mr.  Jerome 
capitulated.  Perhaps  the  difference  between  them 
was  more  a  matter  of  fonn  than  anything.  The 
terms  of  the  final  agreement  are  not  stated  in  the 
Life.  They  have  often  been  stated  in  London 
where  everything  on  every  subject  of  human  inter- 
est is  known,  and  where  it  was  always  understood 
that  Mr.  Jerome  agreed  to  settle  £2000  a  year 
on  his  daughter  and  son-in-law,  with  remainder 
to  the  children,  duly  secured  by  a  mortage  on  the 
University  Club  house  in  Madison  Square.  But 
what  I  ask  you  to  notice  is  the  readiness  of  Lord 
Randolph  to  fling  away  an  income  far  larger  than 
he  had  ever  had  unless  it  came  to  him  on  such 
terms  as  he  thought  right  and  unless  his  English 
views  were  accepted  by  this  American  father. 

The  other  instance  relates  to  South  Africa. 
When  he  went  to  Mashonaland,  in  1891,  he  bor- 
rowed £5000  from  a  good  and  staunch  friend 
whom  I  should  like  to  name — well,  why  should  I 
not?     I  mean  Lord  Rothschild,  whose  kindnesses 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  331 

to  men  of  every  degree  and  of  all  religions  and 
races  have  been  innumerable.  If  ever  a  great 
fortune  paid,  in  the  long-ago  phrase  of  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain, a  ransom,  his  has  paid  it;  not  compulsory 
but  from  true  good- will  to  men.  Lord  Randolph 
invested  the  £5000  in  Rand  gold  mining  shares 
on  the  advice  of  that  American  engineer  of  genius, 
Mr.  Perkins,  who  inferred  from  the  dip  of  the 
gold-bearing  reefs  the  direction  and  depth  at 
which  they  could  be  overtaken  by  shafts  sunk 
far  south  of  the  actual  gold  area.  The  world 
knows  the  result  and  is  the  richer  by  hundreds 
of  millions  for  the  vision  which  pierced  the  outer 
crest  of  the  earth  and  saw  the  treasures  hidden 
below.  Mr.  Perkins  was,  in  fact,  the  engineer 
whom  Lord  Rothschild  had  sent  to  South  Africa 
with  Lord  Randolph.  They  had  gone  through 
Mashonaland  together  vainly,  and  the  ex-Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  now  invested  his  £5000 
in  Rand  shares.  But  values  of  that  nature  require 
time  and  being  in  want  of  money  he  sold  two- 
fifths  of  his  investment.  The  remainder  he  held 
till  his  death  when  it  was  disposed  of  for  something 
over  £70,000.  A  comfortable  fortune  to  leave? 
Yes,  comfortable  enough  to  pay  the  debts  of  the 
estate.  That  was  one  form  which  his  contempt 
for  money  took.  He  lived  on  the  principal.  It 
is  no  matter  of  censure.  He  was  bom  and  built 
that  way.  The  strain  of  frugality  in  the  first 
Duke  of  Marborough  had  worn  itself  out. 

My  last  meeting  with  Lord  Randolph  was  at 
Tring,   Lord  Rothschild's  place  in  Buckingham- 


332  Ano^lO'American  Memories 


shire.  He  was  already  in  the  grip  of  the  illness 
which  was  to  destroy  him;  nervous,  irritable,  rest- 
less in  manner,  haggard  to  look  at,  and  his  speech 
uncertain.  I  don't  like  to  think  of  it  and  I  men- 
tion it  only  for  the  sake  of  the  contrast.  For  now 
and  again  the  old  brilliancy  reappeared,  and  the 
old  charm.  He  had  both  in  a  measure  given  to 
few  men.  Wilful  as  he  was,  with  a  freedom  of 
speech  which  overpassed  the  usual  social  limits, 
he  had  also  when  he  chose  the  graces  and  gifts 
which  made  him  beloved  of  men  and  of  women. 
No  man  made  more  enemies;  but  in  this  world — 
by  which  I  mean  this  world  of  England  and  other 
worlds  where  the  English  people  have  built  new 
civilizations — it  is  not  enmities  which  count  but 
friendships. 

Whether  you  saw  him  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, leading  it  as  no  man  had  ever  led  it,  or  at  a 
dinner,  or  on  the  platform,  or,  if  you  like,  on  the 
Turf  or  in  other  places  which  the  Puritan  thinks 
of  the  devil,  he  had  the  same  ascendancy.  He 
said  once  to  Lord  Rosebery  that  to  both  of  them 
their  titles  had  been  helpful  in  public  life.  No 
doubt,  but  something  besides  a  title  descends  or 
may  descend,  to  him  who  bears  it.  Not  every 
son  of  a  duke  has  upon  him  the  stamp  of  the  pa- 
trician. That  is  what  Lord  Randolph  had.  An 
imperious  temper,  an  intellectual  disdain  of  na- 
tures from  which  intellects  had  been  omitted, 
moods  of  black  despair  late  in  life,  but  all  through 
life  the  set  resolve  to  win  his  battles  without  much 
thought  of  the  cost — all  these  he  had,  and  no  one 


Lord  Randolph  Churchill  333 

of  them  nor  all  of  them  broke  or  impaired  the  spell 
he  laid  upon  those  about  him. 

Narrow  means  never  stinted  his  generosity. 
Uncertain  health  never  stilled  his  passion  for  work. 
I  never  went  into  his  library  that  I  did  not  find 
him  busy.  I  have  seen  him  at  dinner  turn  away 
from  the  distinguished  woman  who  passed  for  the 
most  amusing  of  talkers  to  devote  himself  to  a 
neglected  stranger.  When  he  quarrelled  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales  (King  Edward)  and  went  into  a 
kind  of  social  exile  for  seven  years,  while  he  was 
quite  aware  of  the  price  he  was  paying,  he  never 
dreamed  of  surrender.  When  Lord  Salisbury,  not 
choosing  to  remember  or  perhaps  not  able  to 
remember  his  services  and  his  capacities,  passed 
him  over  in  1891  for  the  last  time,  and  gave  the 
leadership  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  his  nephew, 
Mr.  Balfour,  he  writes  to  his  wife:  "All  confirms 
me  in  my  decision  to  have  done  with  politics  and 
try  to  make  a  little  money  for  the  boys  and  for 
ourselves. "  On  his  release  from  party  obligations 
he  sought  others,  and  his  sister.  Lady  Tweedmouth, 
between  whom  and  himself  there  was  on  both 
sides  a  devoted  attachment,  persuaded  him  to 
see  something  of  men  from  whom  he  had  held  aloof. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  among  these,  and  I  end  with 
Mr.  Gladstone's  remark  about  Lord  Randolph: 
"He  was  the  courtliest  man  I  ever  met. " 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

LORD  GLENESK  AND  "  THE  MORNING  POST" 

THE  owning  or  leasing  of  several  houses  is  an 
English  habit  which  is  no  longer  confined 
to  great  landowners  who  have  inherited  their 
possessions.  Many  men  whose  success  in  life 
is  their  own  adopt  the  custom.  Among  many 
instances  I  will  take  one,  for  other  reasons  than 
house-owning,  the  late  Lord  Glenesk,  who  had 
at  one  time  a  lease  of  Invercauld,  the  fine  place 
belonging  to  the  Farquharson  family.  There,  as 
later  at  Glenmuich,  he  liked  to  gather  friends 
about  him  and  there  was  each  year  a  succession 
of  parties.  In  the  beginning  Mr.  Borthwick,  he 
became  successively  Sir  Algernon  Borthwick  and 
Lord  Glenesk.  His  name  and  his  wife's  connect 
themselves  with  many  social  memories  in  Scotland, 
in  London,  where  the  house  in  Piccadilly  was 
long  a  brilliant  centre,  and  in  Cannes  where  they 
occupied  in  winter  the  Chateau  St.  Michel  at  the 
Californie  end  of  the  town  in  beautiful  grounds 
touching  on  the  sea.  They  had  also  for  some 
years  that  square  red  brick  house  in  Hampstead 
on  the  edge  of  the  heath,  with  a  little  land  and  a 
brick  wall  about  it,  and  there  they  entertained  of 
a  Sunday  diuring  part  of  the  season.     Both  had  the 

334 


Lord  Glenesk  and  "  Morning  Post"    335 

art  of  hospitality  and  the  secret  of  social  life, 
by  which  I  mean  the  secret  of  translating  mere 
hospitality  into  happiness  for  others. 

Mr.  Borthwick  acquired  The  Morning  Post  in 
1876.  It  was  then  a  threepenny  paper — six  cents 
on  each  of  six  days  of  the  week.  No  Englishman 
had  ever  then  thought  of  a  Sunday  edition  of  a 
daily  paper;  nor  has  since.  There  are  Sunday 
papers  in  London,  of  which  one,  The  Observer ,  is  a 
supremely  able  journal,  but  they  are  published 
one  and  all  on  Sundays  only.  When  The  Morning 
Post  passed  into  the  hands  of  its  late  proprietor 
the  penny  paper  had  already  made  its  appearance, 
though  not  the  halfpenny.  The  future,  it  was 
thought,  belonged  to  the  penny,  but  The  Morning 
Post  like  The  Times  was  supposed  to  appeal  to  a 
special  class.  It  was  the  organ  of  the  fashionable 
world.  You  went  to  it  for  all  that  fashionable 
intelligence  now  supplied,  more  or  less  completely 
by  all  papers.  It  was  the  one  newspaper  which 
lay  on  the  table  of  every  drawing-room  in  May- 
fair  and  Belgravia  and  in  every  country  house 
throughout  the  kingdom.  Till  Borthwick  became 
editor  it  was  respectable,  decorous,  conventional, 
and  dull.  It  had  little  news  except  what  came 
to  it  through  Renter  and  other  news  agencies. 
There  were  flashes  of  vivacity  when  young  Borth- 
wick went  to  Paris,  a  city  he  understood,  and 
sent  home  sparkling  letters  which  were  the  most 
readable  things  in  the  paper  and  always  seemed 
a  little  out  of  place.  It  was  an  organ  of  Conser- 
vatism, but  the  kind  of  Conservatism  expounded 


336  Anglo-American  Memories 

in  its  editorial  columns  was  more  orthodox  than 
inspiring.  It  had  a  moderate  circulation  and  its 
net  yearly  profits  were  not  far  from  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars. 

When  Mr.  Borthwick  came  into  control  of  this 
property — not  at  first,  but  not  very  long  after — 
he  conceived  the  notion  of  turning  it  into  a  penny 
paper.  It  was  he  who  told  me  the  story.  He  had 
originality  and  he  had  courage  but  he  was  also 
a  man  who  sought  advice  in  great  enterprises 
and  he  talked  this  scheme  over  with  many  men  of 
experience  far  greater  than  his  own.  He  said  to 
me  later: 

"One  and  all  they  advised  me  against  it.  One 
and  all  they  thought  it  spelled  ruin;  or,  if  not  ruin, 
a  great  risk  to  a  valuable  though  not  great  pro- 
perty and  the  certainty  of  loss.  They  told  me  I 
should  inevitably  forfeit  the  support  of  the  classes 
to  whom  The  Post  had  always  appealed  and  that  I 
should  not  gain  new  subscribers  from  other  classes 
in  numbers  sufficient  to  make  good  these  losses. 
I  should  lose  not  only  readers  but  advertisers,  for 
the  advertisers  in  The  Post  were  largely  the  West 
End  tradespeople  who  desired  to  reach  their  West 
End  patrons.  I  should  lose  the  political  author- 
ity which  was  based  on  the  support  of  the  privi- 
leged classes.  In  short,  a  penny  Morning  Post 
was  inconceivable  and  unthinkable  from  any 
point  of  view  whatever." 

To  all  of  which  Borthwick  listened.  He  con- 
sidered every  argument  and  objection  and  protest 
laid  before  him.     But  he  was  one  of  those  men  who 


Lord  Glenesk  and  **  Morning  Post"     337 

regarded  the  opinions  of  other  men  not  as  authori- 
tative but  as  the  material  for  forming  his  own 
opinion,  and  he  summed  the  whole  story  up  in  a 
sentence : 

"Every  journalist  and  every  man  of  business 
whom  I  consulted  was  opposed  to  the  change  and 
I  finally  took  my  decision  to  make  The  Mornmg 
Post  a  penny  paper  in  the  face  of  a  unanimous 
remonstrance  by  friends  and  experts  of  all  kinds. " 

When  Borthwick  told  me  this  some  years  had 
passed  since  the  change  had  been  made.     He  said: 

"In  the  first  year  the  profits  of  the  paper 
doubled.  In  the  second  they  reached  £20,000. 
By  the  fifth  the  amount  was  £30,000. " 

And  so  it  went  on  until  the  annual  net  income 
of  The  Morning  Post  was  £60,000 — ten  times  what 
it  had  been  at  the  price  of  threepence.  It  con- 
tinued to  be  the  organ  of  the  classes;  not,  however, 
refusing  to  accept  that  Tory  Democracy  of  which 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  was  the  inventor,  upon 
which  Toryism,  Conservatism,  and  Unionism  have 
ever  since  thriven.  Neither  Mayfair  nor  Bel- 
gravia  nor  the  country  houses  ever  tried  to  do 
without  it.  The  advertisers  continued  to  advertise. 
It  became,  moreover,  the  organ  of  the  better  class 
of  servants;  butlers,  ladies'  maids,  footmen,  and 
the  multitude  of  menials  who  sought  places  in 
the  best  houses. 

In  other  respects  also  the  paper  was  revolu- 
tionized. It  became  a  newspaper.  The  day  of 
the  humdrum  was  over.  It  had  special  news 
services    and    capable    men    to    conduct    them. 


338  Anglo-American  Memories 

Borthwick  was  a  patient  man  impatient  of  dulness. 
He  gathered  about  him  good  joumahsts  and  good 
writers;  not  always  the  same  thing.  You  now 
began  to  read  the  news  and  letters  and  leaders 
from  some  other  motive  than  a  sense  of  duty. 
They  were  readable.  The  hand  of  the  master 
left  its  mark  on  every  column. 

Nor  did  the  demands  of  journalism  exhaust  Sir 
Algernon  Borth wick's  energies.  He  went  into 
politics  and  into  Parliament,  sitting  for  a  vast 
constituency  in  South  Kensington.  Lady  Borth- 
wick's  help  in  this  political  and  election  business 
was  invaluable.  That  very  accomplished  lady 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  voters  of  South  Kensing- 
ton a  kind  of  influence  to  which  they  had  been 
unaccustomed,  a  social  influence.  Their  wives 
took  part  in  the  game,  neither  having  nor  desiring 
Azotes  but  able  to  affect  the  course  of  events  as 
much  as  if  the  ballot  had  been  theirs,  and  more. 
Lady  Borthwick  had  2500  names  on  her  visiting 
list,  and  they  were  more  than  names.  Each  name 
stood  for  an  individual  whom  Lady  Borthwick 
knew,  and  whose  value  she  knew.  The  beautiful 
white  drawing-room  at  No.  139  Piccadilly  was  in 
those  days  a  little  more  thronged  of  an  after- 
noon or  evening  than  it  had  been,  but  was  never 
crowded.  Some  of  the  best  music  in  London  was 
to  be  heard  there  at  tea-time.  The  dinners  were 
carefully  studied.  Dances  and  evening  parties 
had  a  slightly  political  flavour  but  were  none 
the  less  successful.  There  is,  I  suppose,  no 
place  where  more  than   in   London  their  gentle 


Lord  Glenesk  and  "Morning  Post"   339 

influences  have  a  more  soothing  effect  upon  an 
electorate. 

If  any  reader  reflects  on  the  true  nature  of  the 
exploit  which  Borthwick  accomplished  he  will  per- 
haps agree  that  the  man  capable  of  it  must  have 
had  a  high  order  of  genius.     If  it  was  not  creative 
in  the  sense  that  Lord  Northcliffe's  is  creative,  it 
was  perfect^  adapted  to  the  circumstances  and  the 
time.     It  has  not  perhaps  been  quite  adequately 
recognized.     Lord  Glenesk  was  so  much  a  figure 
in  society  that  when  his  name  was  mentioned 
men  who  knew  only  the  surface  of  things  saw 
in  him   the  ornament   of  a  ballroom.     He  was 
that,  and  he  was  so  very  much  more  that  this 
ballroom  part  of  his  life  is  hardly  even  incidental. 
He  would  dance  night  after  night.     In  the  day- 
time his  mind  applied  itself  to  some  of  the  stiffest 
problems  of  a  very  difficult  profession.     He  told 
me  one  morning  he  had  not  been  in  bed  for  three 
nights.     The  only  answer  I  could  make  was  that 
I  did  not  know  he  ever  went  to  bed.     But  I  knew 
that  after  sleepless  nights  he  spent  days  of  neces- 
sary hard  work  at  the  office,  and  that  he  brought 
to  each  matter  he  dealt  with  the  freshness  of  a 
fresh  mind.     It  was  late  in  life  before  he  began  to 
know  the  meaning  of  the  word  tired. 

Take  him  for  all  in  all,  I  should  name  Lord 
Glenesk  as  one  of  the  three  great  men  I  have 
known  in  English  journalism.  And  whether  in  or 
out  of  journalism  he  had  a  kindliness,  a  charm,  a 
sweet  authority  in  the  affairs  of  life  which  do  not 
belong  to  all  successful  men. 


340  Anglo-American  Memories 

By  and  by  there  appeared  in  Lady  Borth wick's 
drawing-rooms  a  fresh  flower  of  a  girl  whose 
presence  at  her  mother's  afternoon  concerts  and 
then  at  evening  parties  was  a  little  in  advance  of 
her  coming  out.  Miss  Lilias  Borthwick  is  now 
the  Countess  Bathurst  and  I  believe  has,  when 
she  chooses  to  exercise  it,  full  control  over  The 
Morning  Post;  of  which  Mr.  Fabian  Ware  is  the 
present  editor,  a  young  journalist  who  has  made 
himself  a  name  in  his  profession.  Lady  Bathurst 
is,  like  her  mother,  one  of  those  women  who  possess 
better  means  of  making  their  wishes  and  character 
felt  than  by  clamouring  for  votes.  There  are  cases 
where  womanly  charm  may  be  the  companion  of 
settled  opinions  and  convictions  and  clear  pur- 
poses, to  which  The  Morning  Post  of  to-day  is  a 
witness. 

One  factor  in  the  success  of  the  paper  was  Oliver 
Borthwick,  the  son  of  Lord  Glenesk.  Journalism 
attracted  him;  he  entered  his  father's  office  early; 
his  aptitudes  for  the  business  showed  themselves 
at  once,  and  before  many  years  he  was  managing 
editor.  He  had  an  inquiring,  inventive  mind. 
He  kept  his  Conservatism  for  politics,  and  applied 
to  the  conduct  of  The  Morning  Post  the  most 
original  and  even  radical  and  sometimes  daring 
methods.  He  understood  details  and  thought  no 
detail  beneath  the  notice  of  a  manager.  He  liked 
to  do  things  which  the  old  hands  in  the  office 
pronounced  impossible,  among  them  that  paged 
index  to  the  contents  of  the  paper  which  he  first 
believed  and  then  proved  to  be  practicable.     All 


Lord  Glenesk  and  "Morning  Post'*  341 

this  did  not  stand  in  the  way  of  broad  conceptions 
and  great  schemes  for  which  his  father  gave  him  a 
free  hand.  Lord  Glenesk  asked  me  one  day  if 
OHver  had  told  me  of  his  newest  plan.  I  said  no. 
"Well,  you  had  better  ask  him  about  it.  I  shall 
not  interfere,  though  it  is  going  to  cost  a  lot  of 
money" ;  and  he  named  a  sum  which  ran  into  many 
figures.  Those  were  the  relations  which  existed 
between  father  and  son.  But  there  came  a  day 
when  they  existed  no  longer.  Oliver  Borthwick's 
joy  in  his  work  was  such  that  he  never  spared 
himself  and  he  died  at  thirty-two,  his  father  still 
living.  The  only  gift  he  lacked  was  the  gift  of 
adapting  his  work  to  his  strength.  He  overworked 
recklessly;  he  could  not  do  otherwise.  He  would 
spare  everybody  but  himself.  And  so  to-day, 
instead  of  being  an  ornament  of  his  profession 
and  of  social  life,  Oliver  Borthwick  is  only  a 
memory  and  a  lasting  regret. 

Since  the  foregoing  was  written  Mr.  Reginald 
Lucas  has  published  his  Lord  Glenesk  and  The 
Morning  Post,  an  agreeable  and  informing  book. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  comment  on  it  but  I  should 
like  to  add  to  what  I  have  said  above  of  Lord 
Glenesk  a  passage  from  a  signed  review  by  me 
in  The  Morning  Post: 

"As  I  think  of  the  man  whom  I  knew,  the  im- 
portance of  the  things  he  did,  great  and  brilliant 
as  they  were,  seems  to  me  less  than  the  impor- 
tance of  the  man  himself.  If  I  could,  I  should 
like  to  describe  not  what  he  did  but  what  he  was. 


342  Anglo-American  Memories 

I  should  say  that  his  friendships,  to  which  I  have 
already  referred,  were  part  not  only  of  his  life  but 
of  himself.  The  range  of  them  would  show  that. 
Political  friendships  came  to  him  in  his  position 
as  a  matter  of  course.  But  friendships  non-political 
were  more  numerous  and  more  remarkable  still. 
The  late  Queen's  regard  for  him  was  a  strong  one. 
Early  in  life  he  was  the  friend  of  that  astonishing 
Frenchwoman,  Elizabeth  Rachel  Felix,  more  com- 
monly known  as  Rachel,  perhaps  the  greatest 
tragedian  of  all  time,  in  almost  the  full  flower 
of  her  genius  at  seventeen.  Later  in  life  he  was 
the  friend,  the  very  helpful  and  trusted  friend, 
of  Madame  Sarah  Bernhardt.  He  early  conceived 
and  retained  to  the  end  an  affection  for  the  French 
Emperor.  I  need  not  go  on  with  the  catalogue 
but  there  are  many  friends,  not  to  be  named,  who 
were  under  obligations  to  him  for  kindnesses  and 
whom  he  seems  to  have  liked  because  he  had  helped 
them.  All  through  life  that  was  true.  He  gave 
freely,  generously,  delicately.  Nihil  humani  was 
his  motto  or  one  of  his  mottoes.  There  must  have 
been  many.  A  life  so  varied  as  his  does  not 
move  to  the  music  of  a  single  air  on  a  single 
string. 

"Not  the  briefest,  and  not  even  the  most  public, 
notice  of  Lord  Glenesk  can  omit  all  reference  to 
the  happiness  of  his  private  life.  Even  the  few 
lines  above  may  show  what  part  his  wife  had  in 
his  happiness,  and  he  in  hers.  Of  his  daughter, 
Lady  Bathurst,  Mr.  Lucas  has  told  us  something 
with  due  reserve;  enough  to  give  his  readers  at 


Lord  Glenesk  and  "Morning  Post"   343 

least  a  hint  of  the  affection  between  her  and  her 
father  and  why  it  was  on  both  sides  so  deep,  and  is 
on  hers  so  abiding.  OHver  was  to  all  the  world  a 
beloved  and  brilliant  figure,  and  when  the  time 
came  his  father's  right  hand ;  then  finally  relieving 
him  of  his  executive  cares.  Then  at  thirty- two 
came  the  end,  and  then  the  father  at  seventy-five 
takes  up  the  burden  once  more,  but  not  for  long. 
"Mr.  Lucas  tells  us  that  President  Roosevelt's 
'manner  of  receiving  Oliver  was  particularly 
flattering.'  I  hope  it  may  interest  his  friends  if 
I  enlarge  that  a  little.  Oliver  told  me  when  he 
came  to  Washington  that  he  had  the  usual  intro- 
duction from  the  British  Ambassador,  which  is 
indispensable,  and  asked  me  what  he  had  better 
do.  He  wished  something  more  than  a  formal 
interview  as  one  of  the  many  whom  it  was  the 
President's  habit  to  receive  in  line,  bestowing 
a  few  cordial  but  conventional  words  on  each. 
I  saw  the  President  that  afternoon,  told  him 
something  of  Oliver's  position  and  of  Oliver  him- 
self. He  answered,  'Bring  him  to  lunch  to- 
morrow.' At  lunch  the  President  put  him  next 
to  himself  and  the  two  talked  together  during  and 
after  this  meal.  Then  Oliver  and  I  walked  away. 
He  said,  'The  President  is  a  great  natural  force,* 
a  phrase  which  recalls  Lord  Morley's  later  remark 
that  the  two  greatest  natural  phenomena  he  had 
seen  in  the  United  States  were  Niagara  and  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt.  The  day  following  I  again  saw 
the  President,  who  perhaps  will  for  once  allow 
himself  to  be    quoted.     He    said:    'Your  friend 


344  Anglo-American  Memories 

Oliver  Borthwick  is  a  very  young  man,  but  a 
man.'  Then  a  pause;  then,  'And  what  charm  he 
has.  It  is  long  since  I  have  met  any  newcomer 
whom  I  have  liked  better.'  " 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

QUEEN  VICTORIA  AT  BALMORAL — KING  EDWARD  AT 
DUNROBIN — ADMIRAL  SIR  HEDWORTH  LAMB- 
TON — OTHER  ANECDOTES 

TNVERCAULD,  of  which  Lord  Glenesk  was 
^  long  tenant,  Hes  near  Bahnoral ;  a  name  famous 
the  world  over  as  the  Highland  home  of  Queen 
Victoria  and  then  of  the  late  King.  A  castle  on 
which  the  very  German  taste  of  the  very  German 
husband  of  the  great  Queen  has  left  its  mark. 
It  is  no  more  a  fine  castle  than  Buckingham  Palace 
is  a  fine  palace.  It  stands,  however,  in  a  beautiful 
country  and  some  of  the  best  drives  within  easy 
reach  are  those  on  the  Invercauld  property.  They 
are  private  but  aU  gates  swing  open  to  Kings  and 
Queens. 

The  privacy  was  one  thing  the  Queen  liked. 
So  long  as  she  was  in  the  Highlands  the  loyalty 
of  her  subjects  was  expected  to  manifest  itself  by 
ignoring  her  presence.  If  you  saw  the  Sovereign 
approaching  you  effaced  yourself.  You  slipped 
behind  a  tree  or  looked  over  the  hedge  or  retied 
your  shoelaces.  You  might  do  anything  except 
be  aware  of  this  august  lady's  presence  and  recog- 
nize it  by  the  usual  salute  and  the  bared  head 

345 


346  Anglo-American  Memories 

as  she  went  by.  The  Queen  was  ever,  as  her 
son  was,  insistent  upon  etiquette.  No  form  of 
ceremony  must  be  neglected.  But  at  Balmoral  the 
etiquette  consisted  in  the  absence  of  all  form 
or  ceremony  outdoors.  You  were  expected  to 
know  this,  and  if  you  did  not  know  it  but  stood  at 
attention  with  lifted  hat  this  mark  of  homage 
would  not  be  well  received.  I  once  heard  a 
stranger  who  had  offended  in  this  way  say  that 
the  look  upon  the  Queen's  face  as  she  passed 
was  a  lesson  not  to  be  forgotten. 

Her  Majesty  drove  quietly  about  in  a  pony 
carriage  with  perhaps  the  ever  faithful  John 
Brown  in  attendance  to  lay  a  shawl  about  her 
shoulders  or  take  one  off,  as  he  judged  best.  You 
might  see  him  do  as  much  as  that  in  the  publicity 
of  Hyde  Park  in  London.  It  was  partly  in  the 
simplicity  of  this  Highland  life  that  the  Queen 
found  repose.  Her  Majesty  would  sometimes 
stop  at  Invercauld  House  for  tea,  apparently  as 
one  neighbour  appealing  to  the  hospitality  of 
another.  But  I  imagine  these  impulses  were 
announced  beforehand  and  that  the  list  of  guests 
at  Invercauld  was  known  at  Balmoral.  During 
one  week  there  was  among  them  a  lady  who,  for 
purely  technical  reasons,  was  never  received  at 
Court  though  she  went  almost  everywhere  else  in 
London  and  had,  and  has,  a  position  almost 
unique.  But  so  long  as  this  lady  remained  at 
Invercauld  House  the  Queen  found  herself  too 
much  occupied  with  business  of  State  to  come  to 
tea. 


Kine  Edward  at  Dunrobin  347 


'£5 


Royalty  knows,  or  knows  about,  almost  every- 
body. The  late  King  was  always  the  best  in- 
formed man  in  his  dominions.  It  was  rare  that 
he  met  a  man  or  woman  whose  face  and  history 
were  not  familiar  to  him.  He  did  once  at  Dun- 
robin  Castle.  This  was  not  many  years  ago,  when 
the  King  and  Queen  were  circumnavigating  this 
island-part  of  their  Empire  in  the  royal  yacht. 
The  yacht  anchored  for  some  days  in  the  bay  off 
the  castle.  The  King  or  Queen,  or  both,  came 
ashore  during  the  day  and  retiu'ned  to  sleep  on 
board.  As  the  King,  the  Duke  of  Sutherland, 
and  Captain  Hedworth  Lambton,  commander 
of  the  yacht,  were  walking  up  from  the  pier 
through  the  gardens  to  the  castle,  a  man  passed 
them.  "Who  is  that?"  asked  the  King.  The 
Duke  had  to  admit  he  could  not  tell.  "Oh,  sir," 
said  Captain  Lambton,  "don't  you  know  the 
castle  is  full  of  people  whom  the  Duke  does  n't 
know  and  the  Duchess  never  sees?"  The  King 
took  this  pleasantry  as  it  was  meant;  aware  that 
there  was  beneath  it  just  that  evanescent  adum- 
bration of  fact  which  made  it  plausible. 

Captain  Lambton,  then  the  Hon.  Hedworth 
Lambton,  brother  to  the  present  Earl  of  Durham, 
is  now  Admiral  the  Hon.  Sir  Hedworth  Lambton, 
K.C.B.,  the  youngest  man  of  his  rank  in  the  service; 
or  was  when  he  was  made  admiral.  Noted  for 
the  quaint  felicity  of  his  sayings,  sometimes  with 
an  edge  to  them;  noted  for  his  service  with  the 
Naval  Brigade  in  South  Africa  and  the  relief  of 
Ladysmith;  noted  as  a  skilful  seaman  who  had 


348  Anglo-American  Memories 

commanded  the  cruiser  division  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean fleet  and  afterward  the  China  squadron. 
The  Lamb  tons  are  a  family  apart,  and  Sir  Hed- 
worth  is  a  man  apart,  even  amid  his  own  family. 
There  are  few  men  who  give  you  a  stronger 
impression  of  having  made  their  own  that  rule  of 
life  which  consists  in  taking  things  as  they  come. 
Struggling  through  the  watercourses  of  the  veldt 
with  his  4.10  gun,  or  on  the  quarter-deck  of  the 
royal  yacht  in  harbour  with  only  duties  of  cere- 
mony to  perform,  he  is  the  same  man. 

He  came  to  Dalmeny  House  for  the  week-end 
Ys^hile  the  Victoria  and  Albert  was  lying  at  Queens- 
ferry.  On  the  Sunday  morning  he  asked  Lord 
Rosebery  and  his  house-party  to  go  with  him  to  the 
yacht  for  morning  service.  We  drove  through 
the  charming  park  to  the  Leuchold  Gate  and  so 
to  Queensferry  pier,  whence  a  launch  took  us  on 
board.  The  yacht  has  a  displacement  of  some- 
thing more  than  five  thousand  tons.  Those 
external  lines  of  beauty  which  you  expect  in  a 
yacht  had  been  omitted  by  the  Admiralty  de- 
signers responsible  for  this  vessel,  but  once  on 
board  everything  is  admirable.  The  ship  was 
lying  in  the  Forth,  above  the  bridge,  waiting  for 
Queen  Alexandra  to  embark  for  Copenhagen. 
Nothing  could  be  smarter  than  the  decks  and 
the  crew  except  the  officers;  all  in  full  uniform. 

It  was  August,  and  though  some  Americans  say 
the  sun  never  shines  on  these  islands,  there  are 
moments  of  exception  and  this  was  one.  It  was 
burning  hot.     Captain  Lambton  read  the  service, 


Captain  Lambton  349 

his  officers  and  guests  about  him,  the  men  in  front, 
all  amidships  on  the  upper  deck.  He  came  to 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  sailors  all  kneeling  and  all 
caps  off.  In  the  very  middle  of  it,  without  a 
change  of  intonation  or  accent,  he  said  to  his  men: 
''If  anybody  feels  the  sun  they  may  put  their 
caps  on."  I  suppose  a  super-devout  churchman 
might  have  been  shocked,  but  the  reader  was 
captain  of  the  ship  and  he  had  no  idea  of  allowing 
one  of  his  men  to  have  a  touch  of  sunstroke.  It 
appears  they  were  in  no  danger  for  not  one  of  them 
put  on  his  cap.  Nor  did  any  one  seem  to  think 
his  captain's  interlocutory  sentence  out  of  place. 
I  have  seen  often  enough  both  in  the  navy  and  in 
the  army  that  the  most  rigid  disciplinarian  may  be 
of  all  others  the  most  careful  of  his  men's  health 
and  comfort. 

In  these  Dreadnought  days  nothing  of  the  pre- 
Dreadnought  period  counts.  But  I  was  once 
on,  I  believe,  the  first  Dreadnought,  of  a  type  long 
since  antiquated,  with  a  low  freeboard  forward 
and  the  whole  expanse  of  the  forecastle  deck  so 
arranged  as  to  be,  with  reference  to  the  rest  of 
the  vessel,  a  lever  on  which  the  Atlantic  might 
pile  itself  up.  I  asked  the  captain  what  might 
happen  in  a  heavy  head  sea.  "The  chances  are, " 
he  answered  coolly,  "she  would  go  down  head 
foremost."  However,  at  the  moment  she  was 
comfortably  anchored  off  Queensferry. 

That  danger  exists  no  longer  for  the  model  is 
obsolete,  and  this  particular  ship  no  doubt  went 
long  since  to  the  scrap  heap.     But  the  unsolved 


350  Anglo-American  Memories 

problems  of  naval  warfare  are  still  numerous.  A 
fighting  admiral  in  the  British  navy  will  tell  you 
strange  things  if  he  happens  to  be  in  a  talkative 
mood.  Nothing  is  better  worth  listening  to 
than  the  discourse  of  a  man  who  has  command 
of  a  great  fleet  or  of  a  great  ship,  whether  of  war 
or  commerce.     I  quote  one  sentence: 

"You  want  to  know  what  is  likely  to  happen 
when  two  modem  battle  fleets  meet  at  sea,  equal 
in  fighting  strength  and  under  equal  conditions. 
No  man  knows.  It  has  never  yet  happened. 
But  the  chances  are  both  would  go  to  the  bottom. " 

Out  of  many  Highland  incidents  I  choose  one, 
for  brevity's  sake. 

Invermark.  A  place  renowned  for  many  kinds 
of  sport,  salmon  fishing  included.  It  belonged, 
when  I  knew  it,  to  the  late  Lord  Dalhousie,  who 
generally  let  it  and  confined  himself  to  Brechin 
Castle,  with  excursions  to  Panmure  House.  Inver- 
mark was  a  lodge  and  nothing  more;  just  room 
for  half  a  dozen  guests  and  their  guns  and  servants. 
Lord  Dudley  and  the  late  Lord  Hindlip  had  it 
together  one  year.  Lord  Hindlip  was  the  head 
of  the  great  brewery  firm  of  Allsopp  &  Co.  He 
annoimced  to  us  one  night  at  dinner  that  he  must 
go  to  London  next  morning  on  business.  He 
went,  returning  two  days  later.  He  had  spent 
twelve  hours  in  London.  Somebody  said,  ''I 
hope  your  business  turned  out  all  right."  Lord 
Hindlip  answered:  "I  don't  know  about  all  right. 
I  bought  £750,000  ($3,750,000)  worth  of  hops 
at  a  price  which  makes  it  impossible  there  should 


Lord  Hindlip  351 

be  any  profit  in  the  next  twelve  months'  brewing. " 
Nobody    asked    but    everybody    looked    another 
question:  "Then  why  buy?"     Lord  Hindlip  con- 
tinued his  sentence  as  if  he  had  not  noticed  our 
curiosity.     "But  if  I  had  not  bought  yesterday 
there  would  have  been  no  brewing  of  beer  at  all 
for  the  next  twelve  months,   nor  perhaps  ever." 
This  was  one  of  the  houses — ^perhaps  only  those 
belonging  to  the  great  brewers — where  beer  was 
served  with  the  cheese  instead  of  port.     But  not 
the  kind  of  beer  known  to  the  ordinary  mortal. 
Beer  specially  brewed,  long  kept,  tenderly  cared 
for,  and  somehow  transformed  into  a  transcenden- 
tal fluid,  transparent,  golden  in  colour,  nectar  to 
the  taste,  strangely  mild  on  the  palate,  but  swiftly 
finding  its  way  to  the  brain  if  you  were  ensnared 
into  drinking  a  tumblerful.     There  was  nothing 
to  warn  you  unless  your  host  warned  you,  which 
he  generally  did  not.     He  perhaps  rather  pressed 
it  upon  you  as  they  do  the  Audit  ale  at  Trinity 
College,   Cambridge,  with  a  hospitality  not  free 
from  guile.     That  I  knew  through  the  late  Mr. 
Justice  Denham,  who  was  my  host,  and  when  I 
resisted  he  told  me  how  Lord  Chancellor  Camp- 
bell had  praised  the  mildness  of  the  ale,  and  had  a 
second  drink,  and  then  a  third ;  and  upon  emerging 
from  the  buttery  into  the  fresh  air  found  himself 
embarrassed;  he,   the  hardest  head  at  the  Bar 
of  his  time.     A  story  which  I  hand  on  as  a  warn- 
ing to  the  next  comer. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

FAMOUS  ENGLISHMEN  NOT  IN  POLITICS 


nPHERE  are,  perhaps,  a  few  names  of  to-day 
*  which  it  is  possible  to  mention  without 
becoming  involved  in  the  politics  of  to-day.  The 
English,  it  is  true,  draw  a  broader  line  between 
what  is  purely  political  and  what  is  personal  than 
we  do.  They  can  give  and  take  hard  knocks, 
whether  in  Parliament  or  on  the  platform  or  even 
in  the  Press,  without  animosity  or  resentment. 
But  since  in  America  it  seems  to  be  supposed  that 
any  reference  to  these  encounters  may  have  its 
danger  side  I  avoid  them  for  the  present.  I  turn 
away  from  the  Revolutionary  present,  of  which 
one  's  stock  of  Memories  increases  day  by  day,  to 
the  more  peaceful  past  or  to  a  more  peaceful 
world  in  the  present;  a  world  unravaged  by  politi- 
cal passions.  True,  the  past  was  not  always  a 
peaceful  past  while  it  lasted.  We  do  not  always 
remember  how  fierce  were  the  storms  which  have 
subsided.  But  where  Death  has  made  a  solitude 
we  call  it  peace. 

In  two,  at  least,  of  the  great  contests  waged 
amid  these  periods  of  peace  I  had  a  share,  which 

352 


Englishmen  not  in  Politics  353 

I  must  mention  again  for  the  sake  of  another  story 
I  have  to  tell.  One  was  the  conflict  about  Irish 
Home  Rule  which  became  critical  and  revolution- 
ary in  1 88 1  and  1886;  when  I  was  allowed  to 
state  my  own  views,  unpopular  as  they  were  in 
America,  in  The  Tribune  week  by  week  or  day 
by  day;  a  policy  of  generous  and  far-sighted 
courage  on  the  part  of  that  journal;  honourable 
to  its  editor  and  I  hope  in  the  long  run  not 
injurious  to  the  paper. 

The  second  was  in  1895  ^^^  1896,  in  The  Times 
of  London.  When  President  Cleveland  flung  his 
message  of  war  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  at 
Washington  in  December,  1895,  I  necessarily  had 
much  to  say  about  it  in  The  Times.  There  again 
I  was  given  a  free  hand.  It  is  sometimes  said 
that  the  correspondents  of  this  journal  frame  their 
news  dispatches  in  accordance  with  orders  issued 
to  them  from  the  home  office.  I  can  only  say, 
if  indeed  I  may  say  so  much  without  violating 
obligations  of  secrecy,  that  during  a  service  which 
lasted  ten  years  I  never  knew  of  or  heard  of  any 
such  orders. 

Coming  to  England  in  the  summer  of  1 896  on  a 
holiday,  I  had  some  slight  illness  and  asked  a 
friend  whom  I  should  consult.  My  own  doctor 
was  by  that  time  attending  patients,  I  suppose,  in 
another  and  better  world.  My  friend  said  he  had 
lately  seen  fourteen  physicians  about  his  son  and 
each  of  the  fourteen  had  given  a  different  name 
to  his  son's  disease. 

"Then  I  went  to  Dr.  Barlow,  who  said,  after  a 


354  Anglo-American  Memories 

long  examination,  'I  do  not  know  what  is  the 
matter  with  your  son  nor  what  to  prescribe  for 
him. '  Then  I  felt  I  had  found  a  doctor  whom  I 
could  trust." 

So  I  went  to  Dr.  Barlow,  without  an  introduc- 
tion. At  the  end  of  a  rather  long  consultation 
and  a  definite  opinion  and  a  settled  prescription, 
I  asked  what  his  fee  was. 

"Nothing." 

I  thought  he  had  misunderstood  my  question, 
and  repeated  it. 

"Nothing.  I  can  take  no  money  from  a  man 
who  has  done  as  much  as  you  have  to  keep  the 
peace  between  the  two  countries." 

When  I  next  saw  the  manager  of  The  Times  I 
told  him  of  this  incident,  which  he  seemed  to  think 
interesting.     He  said: 

"Such  evidences  of  good  feeling  from  a  man  so 
distinguished  as  Barlow  and  so  far  removed  from 
politics  do  indeed  make  for  good  feeling  on  both 
sides.     I  hope  you  will  tell  all  your  own  people." 

It  is  difficult,  for  I  cannot  tell  it  without  more 
or  less  directly  paying  a  compliment  to  myself. 
But  many  years  have  since  ebbed  away.  Modesty 
is  at  best  but  an  inconvenient  handmaiden,  from 
whom  I  would  part  company  if  I  could.  Let  her 
keep  to  her  proper  place.  An  obligation  of  honour 
is  peremptory;  and  this,  perhaps,  is  one.  I  did 
tell  a  certain  number  of  friends  at  the  time,  and 
now  I  repeat  the  anecdote  to  a  larger  number.  I 
set  it  against  Mr.  Price  Collier's  mischievous  dic- 
tum that  English  and  Americans  do  not  like  each 


Englishmen  not  in  Politics  355 

other.  The  dictum  already  seems  to  belong  to  a 
distant  and  misty  and  mythical  past. 

Since  that  year  of  1896  Dr.  Barlow  has  become 
(in  1902)  Sir  Thomas  Barlow,  Bart.,  and  Physician 
to  the  King's  Household;  about  as  high  as  any- 
body can  go  in  the  medical  profession.  A  Lan- 
cashire lad  to  begin  with,  he  has  had  a  vast  hospital 
experience,  and  still  keeps  up  his  hospital  work; 
he  has  a  vast  private  practice;  Harvard  and  two 
Canadian  universities  have  given  him  their  LL.D. ; 
he  is  an  F.R.S.,  a  K.C.V.O.,'  and  other  parts  of 
the  alphabet  pay  him  tribute.  All  these  and 
many  other  titles  and  distinctions  have  their 
value,  though  the  late  Sir  Henry  Drummond 
Wolif,  who  had  more  than  most  men,  did  say: 
''They  give  me  every  kind  of  letter  to  my  name 
except  L.S.D."  But  the  essential  thing  in  Sir 
Thomas  Barlow's  case  is  that  he  has  the  confidence 
of  the  public  and  of  his  profession. 

One  thing,  it  seems  to  me,  the  great  surgeons 
and  physicians  I  have  known  had  in  common. 
They  were  great  men,  first  of  all.  They  had 
great  qualities  outside  of  their  profession.  Two 
years  ago  last  September,  a  time  when  the  big 
men  are  mostly  away,  I  wanted  a  surgeon  and 
knew  not  where  to  find  one.  A  chemist  finally 
gave  me  a  name,  Mr.  Henry  Morris,  and  an  ad- 
dress; name  wholly  unknown  to  me,  though  the 
address,  Cavendish  Square,  implied  at  least  pro- 
fessional prosperity.  I  had  had  a  fall  at  the 
Playhouse,  as  Mr.  Maude  calls  his  little  theatre, 
the  night  before,  leaving  a  box  by  what  I  supposed 


356  Anglo-American  Memories 

to  be  steps  and  in  the  absence  of  steps  coming 
down  on  the  floor,  bruised,  and  I  knew  not  what 
else.  My  surgeon  made  his  examination.  What 
struck  me  was  that  he  wasted  never  a  word  nor  a 
gesture.  The  touch  of  his  hands,  of  his  fingers, 
had  a  mathematical  or  instrumental  precision.  So 
had  his  questions.  In  five  minutes  or  less  he  had 
covered  the  ground  and  delivered  his  opinion. 
Anything  might  have  happened,  but  nothing  had, 
bar  the  bruised  muscles.  "We  '11  attend  to  those 
for  you."  He  asked  if  I  was  leaving  town  and 
when  I  said  I  was  sailing  for  New  York  on  Saturday 
he  remarked: 

"If  you  were  a  working-man  I  should  send  you 
to  the  hospital  and  you  would  be  kept  in  bed  till 
you  were  w^ell.  But  if  you  choose  to  sail  on  the 
Lusitania  you  must  bear  the  pain.  Now,  as  you 
are  here,  you  might  as  well  let  me  overhaul  you." 

Then,  as  before,  the  same  precision,  the  same 
delicacy  of  touch,  the  same  rapidity,  nothing 
hurried,  nothing  missed;  his  examination  a  work 
of  art  as  well  as  of  science.  Then  he  began  to 
talk  of  other  things;  and  again,  and  even  stronger, 
was  the  impression  of  being  in  contact  with  a 
master  mind.  Seldom  have  I  spent  a  more  stimu- 
lating hour.  He  was,  I  found  later,  Mr.  Henry 
Morris,  Consulting  Surgeon  to  the  Middlesex 
Hospital  and  President  of  the  Royal  College  of 
Surgeons.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Henry  Morris, 
about  whom  I  ought  to  have  known,  but  did  not, 
was,  and  is,  in  the  very  front  rank  of  his  profes- 
sion. His  eminence  has  since  been  recognized  and 


Englishmen  not  in  Politics  357 

rewarded  by  the  King,  and  he  is  now  Sir  Henry- 
Morris,  Bart.  I  suppose  even  a  Republican  may 
admit  that  if  titles  are  to  be  conferred  they  are 
well  conferred  on  men  eminent  in  science. 


II 


Sir  Thomas  Barlow  has  since  been  elected  Presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  in  succes- 
sion to  Sir  Douglas  Powell.  This  is  the  Blue 
Ribbon  of  the  profession,  perhaps  a  greater  honour 
than  a  knighthood  or  baronetcy,  though  the 
knighthood  or  the  baronetcy  is  from  the  King, 
the  source  and  fountain  of  all  such  distinctions. 
But  the  Presidency  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physi- 
cians is  conferred  by  the  Profession  itself.  The 
Fellows  of  the  College,  who  number  some  three 
hundred,  are  the  choosing  body.  They  vote  by 
ballot  and  the  man  whom  they  elect  is  the  man 
by  whom  they  wish  to  be  represented  before  the 
public ;  the  man  by  whom  they  are  content  to  be 
judged.  They  say,  in  effect,  of  him  whom  they 
choose:  "This  is  the  Head  of  the  Medical  Pro- 
fession for  the  time  being."  The  public,  which 
really  and  rightly  has  much  more  confidence  in 
the  judgment  of  the  doctors  upon  each  other 
than  in  any  lay  reputation,  accepts  that.  When 
you  say  of  a  physician,  "He  is  a  doctors'  doctor," 
you  have  said  about  all  you  can. 

The  President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians 
has,  no  doubt,  duties  which  are  not  medical. 
He    has    executive,    administrative,    consultative 


358  Anglo-American  Memories 

duties;  and  the  very  important  duty  of  dining 
with  the  Lord  Mayor,  the  Corporation  of  the  City 
of  London,  and  the  City  Companies.  In  dis- 
charging these  latter  functions  he  incurs,  I  sup- 
pose, less  risk  than  most  men  incur.  But  risk  or 
no  risk  these  feasts  have  to  be  faced.  Between 
all  Corporations,  Guilds,  and  Colleges  there  is  a 
kind  of  freemasonry.  They  have  points  of  con- 
tact, of  sympathy,  and  are  likely  to  stand  by 
each  other  in  difficulties.  Whether  dinners  were 
invented  as  a  test  and  standard  of  friendship,  I 
cannot  say.  But  go  to  which  of  them  you  like, 
you  will  find  a  collection  of  the  Heads  of 
other  Companies,  Colleges,  etc. ;  not  all,  perhaps, 
dinner-giving,  but  all  willing  victims  of  others' 
hospitality. 

The  Royal  College  of  Physicians  is  also  a  Senate 
or  Parliament;  with  powers  of  legislation  and  of 
professional  guidance  and  discipline.  The  Fellows 
of  this  College  are  Trustees  for  the  whole  Profession. 
The  President  has  an  authority  of  his  own,  depend- 
ing in  part  on  statutes  and  on  custom,  in  part  on 
his  personal  authority.  In  the  latter  Sir  Thomas 
Barlow  will  not  be  found  wanting.  It  is  not  the 
less,  it  is  perhaps  the  greater,  for  the  genial  good 
nature  which  accompanies  it.     I  said  to  him  once: 

"Sir  Thomas,  you  have  one  quality  which  must 
be  a  great  drawback  to  your  success. " 

"Dear  me,  what  is  that?" 

"When  you  come  into  a  room  your  patient  at 
once  thinks  himself  better,  and  even  doubts 
whether  he  need  have  sent  for  you  at  all,  and  so 


Englishmen  not  in  Politics  359 

gets  well  much  quicker  than  he  ought.  It 's  taking 
money  out  of  your  pocket." 

"Very  good.  I  '11  take  care  yoii  don't  get  well 
too  soon. " 

There  was  an  electioneering  story — oh,  no 
politics  in  it — the  other  day  with  an  equally  serious 
but  not  more  serious,  side  to  it.  Men  were  dis- 
cussing the  system  of  plural  voting  still  prevailing 
in  this  country  and  certain  to  prevail  so  long  as 
votes,  or  any  votes,  are  based  on  property  quali- 
fication.    Said  a  well-known  doctor: 

"I  have  sixteen  votes,  all  of  which  I  am  going 
to  poll." 

"But  how?" 

"Oh,  I  have  two  votes  of  my  own  and  I  have 
fourteen  patients  who  are  of  the  wrong  party  and 
not  one  of  them  will  be  well  enough  to  go  out  till 
after  election." 

Think  how  completely  non-political  must  be  a 
profession  of  which  an  eminent  member  can  tell  a 
story  like  that  and  run  no  risk  of  being  misunder- 
stood. The  traditions  of  honour  are  indeed  high 
among  English  doctors,  nor  could  they  be  in 
better  keeping  than  now  in  Sir  Thomas  Barlow's. 

One  of  his  predecessors,  Sir  William  Gull,  was 
also  not  merely  fashionable  and  popular  but 
recognized  by  his  associates  as  a  scientific  practi- 
tioner. Sir  William  Jenner  was  perhaps  reckoned 
by  the  medical  profession  the  best  all-round  man 
ever  known.  Sir  William  Gull  was  not  far  off,  yet 
there  is  an  anecdote  of  him  which  suggests  that 
he  put  a  very  high  value  on  the  average  capacity 


36o  Anglo-American  Memories 

of  doctors.  He  was  asked  to  go  a  long  distance 
into  the  country  to  see  a  patient.  He  declined. 
He  was  told  that  any  fee  he  liked  to  name  would 
be  gladly  paid.  Still  he  declined,  saying  there 
were  cases  be  could  not  leave,  and  when  he  was 
pressed  further  the  great  man  burst  out : 

"But  why  do  you  want  me?  There  are  five 
hundred  doctors  in  London  just  as  good  as  I  am." 

Which  perhaps  was  not  quite  true. 

Sir  William  Broadbent  said  almost  the  same 
thing  to  me,  twenty  years  ago  and  more,  when  I 
asked  him  to  see  Mr.  Hay  whom  I  had  just  left 
in  his  rooms,  in  Ryder  Street,  St.  James's,  to  all 
appearance  extremely  ill.  Hay  said  in  his  emo- 
tional way: 

''Broadbent  is  the  only  doctor  I  believe  in.  If 
you  don't  bring  Broadbent  bring  nobody.  Let 
me  die." 

But  Broadbent  said  no.  He  was  starting  to 
catch  a  train  for  a  life  and  death  consultation  in 
the  country.     He  must  not  miss  his  train. 

"But  there  's  time  enough.  See  Hay  on  your 
way  to  the  train.  Give  him  five  minutes  and  let 
somebody  else  do  the  rest." 

"I  shall  let  somebody  else  do  the  whole." 

"Hay  will  see  nobody  unless  he  sees  you  first.'* 

"There  are  plenty  of  men  as  good  as  I  am.  I 
will  give  you  half  a  dozen  names." 

"I  want  none  of  them.  I  want  you.  You  know 
you  can  stop  your  carriage  for  five  minutes  as  you 
drive  to  the  station. " 

"My  carriage  has  not  come  round." 


Englishmen  not  in  Politics  361 

"  My  hansom  is  at  the  door.  Drive  with  me  and 
let  your  carriage  follow." 

Finally  he  did.  When  he  came  out  of  Hay's 
bedroom  he  was  a  very  angry  man.     He  said: 

"Your  friend  has  a  bad  attack  of  indigestion. 
He  will  be  all  right  in  an  hour. " 

And  away  he  went.  An  angry  man  is  not  always 
a  just  man.  Hay — God  bless  his  memory — ■ 
thought  himself  suffering  from  a  heart  attack. 
There  is,  I  believe,  a  medical  analogy  between  the 
symptoms  of  heart  disease  and  violent  indigestion. 
I  had  left  him  lying  on  the  floor  almost  in  convul- 
sions. How  was  he  to  know  it  was  not  heart 
disease,  to  which  he  believed  himself  subject? 
Hay  was  not  then,  to  the  English,  so  great  a  man 
as  he  afterwards  became.  He  had  not  been  Am- 
bassador, nor  Secretary  of  State,  nor  dictated  to 
the  European  Powers  a  new  policy  in  the  East. 
I  ought  not  to  use  the  word  dictated.  It  is  not 
descriptive  of  Hay's  methods,  which  were  persua- 
sive. Nor  does  one  Power  dictate  to  another.  Let 
us  say  he  had  secured  by  the  adroit  use  of  accepted 
diplomatic  methods  the  adhesion  of  the  European 
Powers  to  his  proposals  in  respect  of  China.  No 
American  Secretary  of  State  had  ever  made  so 
original  or  beneficent  a  use  of  his  power.  He  had 
brought  his  country  once  for  all  into  the  great 
world-partnership  of  great  Powers  the  world  over. 

Sir  William  Broadbent  did  not  foresee  that. 
He  could  not.  If  he  had  he  might  have  been  less 
angry,  for  he  was  thought  to  be  considerate  of 
greatness  in  all  its  forms  or  in  many  of  them.     He 


362  Anglo-American  Memories 

liked  patients  of  distinction,  which  is  no  reproach. 
He  had  many  of  them.  But  the  odd  thing  was 
that  he  seemed  never  quite  able  to  overcome  his 
awe  of  rank  and  title.  In  a  company  of  persons 
of  rank  his  manner  was  not  that  of  an  equal.  He 
used  to  address  persons  of  rank  as  a  servant  ad- 
dresses them;  or  it  might  be  kinder  to  say  as 
inferiors  in  position  used  to  address  their  superiors 
two  or  three  generations  ago.  And  always  with 
embarrassment . 

Another  celebrated  man  of  medicine,  Sir  Andrew 
Clark,  had  an  almost  factitious  renown  as  Mr. 
Gladstone's  doctor,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  was  a  very 
good  patient,  in  one  sense.  One  thing  this  famous 
physician  had ;  he  had  absolute  confidence  in  himself. 
Or,  if  no  doctor  has  that,  he  had  enough  to  give 
his  patient  confidence,  which  is  perhaps  not  less 
important.  Old  Abemethy  used  to  say:  "The 
second  best  remedy  is  best  if  the  patient  thinks  it 
best."  And  I  suppose  that  is  as  true  of  doctors 
as  of  remedies.  If  Sir  Andrew  doubted,  he  never 
allowed  you  to  see  that  he  doubted.  Like  aU  these 
great  men,  he  had  a  social  as  well  as  medical 
popularity  and  he  was  very  good  company  at 
dinner  and  after. 

One  evening  I  met  him  at  a  pleasant  house 
where  there  was  a  good  cook  and  the  company, 
including  the  host,  did  not  exceed  six;  all  men. 
We  all  noticed  that  Sir  Andrew  drank  champagne. 
Presently  one  of  the  men  said : 

''You  don't  allow  us  champagne.  Sir  Andrew, 
but  you  allow  it  to  yourself." 


Englishmen  not  in  Politics  363 

"  Oh,  I  have  had  a  long  day,  and  I  am  very  tired, 
and  I  must  have  it.  Besides,  when  I  get  home 
there  '11  be  thirty  or  forty  letters  to  answer." 

So  the  champagne  flowed  on,  like  the  water,  as 
Mr.  Evarts  said,  at  one  of  President  Hayes's  White 
House  dinners.  Sir  Andrew  drank  no  more  than 
anybody  else.  It  was  only  because  of  his  habit 
of  prohibiting  it  to  others  that  we  noticed  whether 
his  glass  was  full  or  empty.  As  we  went  upstairs 
I  said  to  him: 

"Do  you  mean  that  after  all  that  champagne 
you  are  going  to  answer  thirty  or  forty  letters 
when  you  get  home?" 

"No,  certainly  not." 

"Then  what  did  you  mean?" 

"What  I  meant  was  that  after  my  champagne 
I  should  not  care  whether  they  were  answered  or 
not." 

It  was  Sir  Andrew  Clark  who  said  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, some  fifteen  years  before  his  death  at  eighty- 
eight  that  there  was  no  physiological  reason  why 
he  should  not  live  to  be  120.  If  that  was  meant 
as  a  prophecy  it  had  the  fate  of  most  prophecies. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

LORD   ST.    HELIER — AMERICAN  AND   ENGLISH 
METHODS — MR.    BENJAMIN 

IF  you  care  for  a  clear  view  of  English  life  and 
of  Englishmen  you  need  not  always  go  to  the 
mountain  tops  in  search  of  it.  If  you  can  find 
a  man  who  stands  for  what  is  typical,  who  is  in 
the  front  rank,  but  not  among  the  very  foremost, 
who  has,  in  a  high  degree,  the  qualities  by  which 
the  average  Englishman,  having  them  in  a  much 
less  degree,  succeeds,  he  is  as  well  worth  studying 
for  this  purpose  as  the  most  illustrious  of  them 
all.  I  could  name  many  such  men.  I  will  take 
one  whom  I  knew  well  for  many  years;  to  whose 
kindness  I  owed  much;  whom  I  saw  often  in  Lon- 
don and  stayed  with  often  in  the  country;  for 
whose  memory  I  have  that  kind  of  affection  which 
survives  even  a  sense  of  many  obligations.  I  mean 
Lord  St.  Helier. 

He  was  Mr.  Francis  Jeune  when  I  first  knew 
him,  and  when  he  married  Mrs.  Stanley.  Later 
he  became  Sir  Francis  Jeune,  and  finally  found 
his  way  into  that  House  of  Lords  which  it  is  now 
the  fashion  among  one  set  of  politicians  to  decry. 
But  I  suppose  nobody  would  deny  that,  whatever 

364 


Lord  St.  Helier  and  Mr.  Benjamin    365 

be  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  hereditary  prin- 
ciple, this  House  contains  more  distinguished  and 
supremely  able  men  than  any  other  body  that 
can  be  named.  For  such  a  man  as  Francis  Jeune 
it  was  the  natural  and  pre-ordained  abode  when 
his  honourable  career  reached  or  approached  its 
climax. 

Sir  Francis  Jeune  was  a  man  who  made  the 
most  of  his  abilities  and  opportunities.  He  was 
a  good  lawyer,  a  good  judge,  and,  after  his  marriage 
with  Mrs.  Stanley,  a  considerable  social  force. 
It  is  among  the  peculiarities  of  English  life  that  the 
Presidency  of  the  Divorce  Court  should  be  one 
of  four  great  prizes  at  the  English  Bar.  The  Lord 
High  Chancellor,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls  hold  the  other  three  most 
coveted  places,  and  are  rewarded  by  appointments 
such  as  the  legal  profession  in  no  other  country  can 
hope  for.  The  dignity  of  all  these  positions  is 
very  great,  and  the  pay  corresponds  to  the  dignity. 

If  we  contrast  the  splendid  figures  with  the 
salaries  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  the  motto  of  the  Republic 
would  seem  to  be  Hamlet's  "Thrift,  thrift,  Hora- 
tio." But  if  the  levelling  doctrines  of  the  present 
day  were  to  prevail,  the  British  judges  would  soon 
descend  to  the  money  level  of  the  American.  I  do 
not  imagine  they  will.  The  illiberal  treatment  of 
public  servants  has  never  been  popular  in  England. 

There  is  nevertheless  something  in  these  high 
legal  posts  which  attracts  men  to  whom  the  pay, 
high  as  it   is,    can   be   no   attraction.     But   that 


366  Anglo-American  Memories 

again  only  sharpens  the  contrast.  The  average 
income  of  the  magnates  at  the  American  Bar 
being  greater  than  at  the  English,  and  the  salaries 
of  the  American  judges  being  less  than  half  those 
of  the  English  judges,  why  should  an  American 
lawyer  of  the  first  class  ever  accept  a  judicial 
office?  Clearly  there  are  other  and  higher  motives 
than  mere  money.  There  are  Americans,  we  are 
told,  who  recognize  in  American  life  no  motive 
higher  than  money.  But  are  they  Americans,  or 
are  they  of  the  true  American  type?  You  might 
have  asked  Mr.  Roosevelt  when  he  was  here  last 
May.  He  is  the  most  famous  of  living  Americans 
and  he  certainly  did  not  become  so  by  the  worship 
of  money. 

I  have  strayed  far  from  Sir  Francis  Jeune,  but 
the  law  and  the  things  of  the  law  must  ever  have 
an  attraction  for  any  one  who  has  at  any  time,  no 
matter  how  long  ago,  been  in  contact  with  them; 
otherwise  than  as  a  client.  And  I  will  stray  further 
still  in  order  to  add  that  one  of  the  greatest  names 
at  the  English  Bar,  and  now  one  of  the  greatest 
memories,  is  that  of  an  American.  I  mean,  of 
course,  Mr.  Benjamin.  He  had  no  superior.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  he  had  an  equal  in  those  duties 
of  his  profession  in  which  he  most  cared  to  excel. 
I  knew  him  a  little.  He  sometimes  talked  to  me 
of  his  career;  surely  the  most  remarkable  at  the 
English  or  perhaps  any  other  Bar,  since  he  was 
fifty-three  when  he  came  to  this  country.  He 
always  acknowledged  heartily  the  kindness  shown 
him,  the  facilities  given  him,  the  aid  even  of  men 


Lord  St.  Helier  and  Mr.  Benjamin    367 

who  foresaw  in  him  a  dangerous  rival,  to  make 
his  path  smooth.     I  said  to  him  once: 

"But  you  came  here  as  the  representative  of  a 
Lost  Cause  which  the  EngHsh  had  at  one  time 
almost  made  their  own.     That  may  have  helped. " 

"Oh,  no;  the  friendship  of  the  governing  classes 
in  England  for  the  Confederacy  had  passed  into 
history.  They  had  discovered  their  mistake.  As 
they  would  say,  they  had  backed  the  wrong  horse. 
It  was  still  some  years  to  the  Geneva  Arbitration 
but  they  had  begun  to  be  aware  they  would  have 
to  pay,  as  others  do  when  they  put  their  money 
on  a  loser.  However,  I  don't  think  that  counted 
one  way  or  the  other.  What  did  count  was  the 
good-will  of  English  lawyers  to  another  lawyer. 
That  you  can  always  depend  on.  They  shortened 
the  formalities.  They  opened  the  doors  as  wide 
as  they  could.  And  never  once  when  I  had  gained 
a  foothold  did  I  find  that  anybody  remembered  I 
was  not  English;  or  remembered  it  to  my  dis- 
advantage. " 

Taking  his  place  as  he  did  at  the  very  head,  he 
was  a  memorable  illustration  of  Daniel  Webster's 
well-known  reply  to  the  young  lawyer  who  asked 
him  if  the  profession  was  not  overcrowded: 

"There  is  always  room  at  the  top." 

Mr.  Benjamin  passed  swiftly  from  penury  to 
affluence.  He  told  me  once  what  his  highest 
earnings  in  any  one  year  had  been.  The  amount 
was  larger  by  many  thousands  of  pounds  than  the 
income  of  his  chief  competitor.  It  was  larger,  I 
think,  than  any  English  lawyer  now  makes  except 


368  Anglo-American  Memories 

at  the  Parliamentary  Bar,  where  the  figures  are 
almost  fantastic.  This  is  a  money  test  but  apply 
any  other  you  like  and  you  would  still  see  the 
figure  of  Mr.  Benjamin  standing  out  from  among 
the  crowd  and  high  above  it;  and  above  even  the 
highest  of  that  day. 

I  dined  lately  at  the  Inner  Temple  as  the  guest 
of  a  great  and  successful  lawyer.  There  was  a 
company  of  other  successful  lawyers  and  of  judges. 
I  asked  a  question  or  two  about  Benjamin.  In 
that  perfectly  rarefied  legal  atmosphere  there  could 
be  none  but  a  purely  legal  opinion.  xA.nd  there 
was  but  one  opinion.  Most  of  these  men  had 
known  him,  though  Benjamin  died  in  1884. 
Whether  they  knew  him  or  not  they  knew  all  about 
him.  His  greatness  was  admitted.  Eulogies  were 
poured  out  on  him. 

"Did  his  American  nationality  hinder  him?" 

"It  neither  hindered  nor  helped.  He  was  at 
the  English  Bar  and  that  was  enough." 

I  come  back  to  Sir  Francis  Jeune.  He  was  the 
friend  and  legal  adviser  of  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
whose  wiU  he  drew.  A  Conservative,  of  course. 
His  practice  at  the  Bar  was  never  of  a  showy 
kind.  But  if  you  put  yourself  into  his  hands  you 
felt  sure  he  would  do  the  right  and  wise  thing. 
His  mind  was  of  the  sort  known  as  legal.  When 
he  came  to  the  Bench  it  was  seen  to  be  judicial 
also.  I  suppose  the  general  public  has  never 
understood  why  Probate,  Divorce,  and  Admiralty 
should  be  united  in  one  division  of  the  Supreme 
Court.     No  two  subjects   could  be  more  unlike 


Lord  St  Helier  and  Mr.  Benjamin    369 

than  Divorce  and  Admiralty.  But  a  judge  is 
supposed  to  have  taken  all  legal  knowledge  to  be 
his  province,  and  to  be  equally  capable  of  dealing 
with  all  the  mysteries  of  the  law  in  all  its  relations 
to  all  parts  of  life.  It  is  true  that  on  the  Admiralty 
side  assessors  are  called  in.  An  assessor  is  a  kind 
of  expert.  A  retired  sea-captain,  for  example,  who 
has  never  commanded  anything  but  a  sailing  ship, 
is  supposed  to  be  competent  to  advise  on  the  most 
intricate  questions  of  modern  steamship  navigation. 
The  result  is  sometimes  astounding,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Campania^  condemned  by  Mr.  Justice 
Gorell  Barnes  to  pay  for  the  loss  of  the  bark 
Emholton,  by  collision,  solely  because  she  was 
steaming  nine  knots.  It  was  proved  that  this  was 
the  safest  speed  for  her  and  for  all  comers;  that 
she  was  under  better  control  at  nine  knots  than 
at  any  less  speed.  But  the  court  said:  "If  people 
will  build  ships  which  are  safest  at  nine  knots 
they  must  be  responsible  for  the  consequences." 

Sir  Francis  Jeune  had  no  part  in  the  trial  of  this 
famous  cause  and  I  am  sure  had  too  much  sense 
to  agree  with  the  judgment.  Good  sense  was, 
perhaps,  the  predominant  trait  in  his  character. 
He  showed  it  pre-eminently  in  the  Divorce  Court. 
There  he  was  helped,  no  doubt,  by  his  social  ex- 
periences. He  knew  London  as  few  men  know  it. 
He  had,  in  such  matters,  almost  feminine  instincts. 
But  he  ruled  in  his  court  as  all  strong  English 
judges  rule,  and  as  strong  American  judges  do  not. 
In  America  we  say  of  an  advocate:  "He  tried  such 

and    such   a   case."     In   England   the   phrase   is 
24 


370  Anglo-American  Memories 

never  used  of  the  barrister.  It  is  the  judge  who 
"tries"  the  cause,  as  it  ought  to  be.  Sir  Francis 
"tried"  the  causes  that  came  before  him.  He 
knew  the  law.  He  mastered  facts  easily.  He 
was  not  easily  misled  and  he  had  the  sagacity 
which  led  him  quickly  to  right  conclusions.  Since 
his  death  there  have  been  contrasts  on  which  I 
will  not  dwell. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

MRS.  JEUNE,  LADY  JEUNE,  AND  LADY  ST.  HELIER 

T^HE  interesting  people  are  the  exceptional 
*  people;  not  those  cast  in  a  mould  common 
to  others,  not  those  whose  lives  run  in  a  groove 
but  those  who  fashion  their  own  lives  in  obedience 
to  the  dictates  of  a  nature  which  is  their  own. 
Among  the  women  of  London  it  would  be  easy  to 
choose  those  of  higher  rank  or  greater  position 
than  Lady  St.  Helier,  but  I  choose  her  because 
she  is  Lady  St.  Helier. 

Whether  the  marriage  of  Mrs.  Stanley  to  Mr. 
Francis  Jeune,  in  1881,  was  or  was  not  considered 
a  social  event  of  the  first  importance  I  cannot  say. 
I  was  not  then  in  London.  But  that  it  became 
important  in  no  long  time  is  clear.  It  was  first  as 
Mrs.  Jeune  and  then  as  Lady  Jeune  that  the 
present  Lady  St.  Helier  achieved  her  great  dis- 
tinction as  a  hostess.  She  was  not  content  to  do 
what  other  ladies  of  position  were  in  the  habit  of 
doing.  She  struck  out  a  line  for  herself.  I  said 
lately  that  London  was  a  world  in  which  everything 
of  the  first  rank  in  many  differing  ranks  and  profes- 
sions met  at  times  beneath  the  same  roofs.  That  was 
not  always  true.     It  was  very  far  from  being  true. 

371 


372  Anglo-American  Memories 

If  you  go  back  no  further  than  the  eighteenth 
century  you  find  in  England  a  society  consisting  of 
perhaps  three  hundred  or  four  hundred  persons. 
If  we  may  judge  by  the  memoirs  and  memories 
that  have  come  down  to  us  it  was  a  very  brilliant 
society,  perhaps  more  brilliant,  though  less  varied, 
than  the  society  of  to-day.  But  it  was  not  com- 
prehensive, still  less  was  it  cosmopolitan.  It  was 
a  caste.  The  hereditary  principle  prevailed.  It 
was  a  society  into  which  you  had  to  take  the 
precaution  to  be  bom.  If  you  were  not  born  into 
it  you  never  found  your  way  in.  There  was  no 
effort  to  keep  people  outside  of  it.  None  was 
required.  The  people  who  were  outside  did  not 
dream  of  forcing  themselves  in.  There  was  no 
reason  why  this  little  clique  should  be  on  the 
defence.  The  Climbers  did  not  then  exist,  as  an 
aggressive  body,  or  as  a  force  of  any  kind.  If 
you  read  Boswell's  Life,  or  Walpole's  Letters,  or 
the  Life  of  Selwyn,  or  any  political  memoirs  of  the 
time,  it  is  clear  that  the  dividing  line  between 
those  who  were  in  society  and  those  who  were 
not  was  a  broad  one,  and  was  aU  but  impassable. 

It  has  long  ceased  to  be,  and  the  steps  by  which 
it  was  worn  away  can  be  traced.  But  if  we  come 
at  once  to  the  'eighties  of  the  last  century  we  see 
a  condition  of  things  which,  a  hundred  years  before 
that,  would  have  seemed  to  the  social  leaders  of 
that  day  fantastic.  The  revolution  had  gone  far; 
it  had  already  become  an  evolution;  and,  of 
course,  the  end  was  not  yet.  It  needed  a  Mrs. 
Jeune  to  carry  it  on  to  its  full  development.     And 


Lady  St.  Helier  373 

since  the  individual  is  but  one  expression  of  those 
natural  forces  which  are,  in  such  cases,  the  opera- 
tive forces,  there  is  no  reason  why  Nature  should 
not  supply  the  individual  as  she  does  the  other 
energies  needed  for  the  work  she  has  in  hand. 
At  any  rate,  she  supplied  Mrs.  Jeune,  and  London 
is  to-day  a  different  place  from  the  London  we 
should  have  known  had  there  been  no  Mrs.  Jeune. 

For  Society,  in  the  mixed  form  now  prevailing, 
is  supposed  to  be  not  only  a  compromise  between 
conflicting  forces  but  the  result  of  much  careful 
diplomacy.  Lady  Jersey  was  a  diplomatist.  Lady 
Palmerston  was  a  diplomatist.  The  late  King  was 
pre-eminently  a  diplomatist.  Whether  from  tem- 
perament or  calculation  I  know  not,  but  Mrs. 
Jeune  cast  diplomacy  to  the  winds.  The  one 
gift  which  stood  to  her  in  the  place  of  all  others 
was  courage.  She  brought  together  at  the  same 
table,  or  under  the  same  roof  at  Arlington  Manor, 
people  the  most  unlike.  Each  one  of  her  guests 
had  some  kind  of  distinction,  or  some  claim  to 
social  recognition.  They  might  or  might  not 
have  anything  in  common 

Mrs.  George  Cornwallis  West,  whom  we  still 
think  of  as  Lady  Randolph  Churchill,  once  gave 
at  her  house  in  Connaught  Place,  by  the  Marble 
Arch,  looking  out  on  Hyde  Park,  what  she  called 
a  dinner  of  deadly  enemies.  It  was  thought  a 
hazardous  experiment.  It  proved  a  complete 
success.  They  were  all  well-bred  people.  They 
all  recognized  their  obligations  to  their  hostess  as 
paramount  for  the  time  being.      They  were  Lady 


374  Anglo-American  Memories 

Randolph's  guests.  That  was  enough.  As  guests 
they  were  neither  friends  nor  enemies.  There  were 
no  hostilities.  The  talk  flowed  on  smoothly. 
When  a  man  found  himself  sent  in  to  dinner  with 
a  woman  to  whom  he  did  not  speak,  his  tongue 
was  somehow  unloosed.  It  was  a  truce.  In  some 
cases  ancient  animosities  were  softened.  In  all 
they  were  suspended.  The  guests  all  knew  each 
other,  and  as  they  looked  about  the  table  they  all 
saw  that  Lady  Randolph  had  attempted  the  im- 
possible and  had  conquered.  A  social  miracle 
had  been  performed. 

What  Lady  Randolph  did  for  that  one  evening 
Mrs.  Jeune  did  night  after  night  and  year  after 
year.  There  was  not  on  her  part,  I  presume,  any 
conscious  intention  of  bringing  irreconcilables  into 
contact  with  each  other.  What  Mrs.  Jeune  did 
was  simply  to  take  no  note  of  the  fact  that  they 
were  irreconcilables.  Her  policy,  if  policy  it  were, 
had  therefore  the  kind  of  validity  which  comes 
to  a  man  or  to  a  woman  from  not  appearing  to  be 
aware  of  the  obvious.  That  is  a  great  resource  in 
debate,  and  a  great  resource  in  that  larger  debate 
which  broadens  into  human  intercourse.  The 
average  man  is  rather  apt  to  do  what  he  sees  is 
expected  of  him.  As  a  guest  he  has  hardly  a 
choice.  When  he  enters  a  front  door  he  puts 
himself  under  the  dominion  of  his  hostess.  If  he 
is  a  man  of  the  world,  his  philosophy  is  to  take 
what  is  offered  him.  If  he  is  not,  he  is  chiefly 
concerned  to  do  as  others  do  whom  he  supposes 
to  be  more  familiar  than  himself  with  the  manners 


Lady  St.  Helier  375 

and  customs  of  Society.  Very  rarely  therefore 
does  anything  Hke  a  colhsion  occur  and  almost 
never  so  long  as  the  company  is  of  two  sexes. 

Mrs.  Jeune  may  or  may  not  have  thought  this 
out,  or  she  may  have  acted  from  those  intuitions 
which  in  women  supply  the  place  of  reason  and 
are,  for  all  social  purposes  and  some  others,  more 
useful  than  reason.  People  who  did  not  like  her 
used  to  say  that  all  she  cared  for  was  to  get  cele- 
brities together.  They  professed  to  think  she  was 
a  Mrs.  Leo  Hunter  and  her  collections  of  guests  so 
many  menageries.  If  that  had  been  so  they  would 
soon  have  been  dispersed,  nor  would  Mrs.  Jeune, 
or  the  Lady  Jeune  of  later  days,  or  the  present 
Lady  St.  Helier,  ever  have  attained  to  the  rank 
she  did  as  hostess.  She  offered  Society  what  no- 
body else  offered,  novelty,  which  is  the  one  thing 
Society  craves  beyond  all  others.  Said  a  man 
who  went  everywhere: 

'*I  go  to  Lady  Jeune's  because  I  never  know 
whom  I  shall  meet,  but  I  know  there  will  always 
be  somebody  I  shall  like  to  meet. " 

By  the  side  of  which  I  will  set  an  anecdote  not 
unlike  it.  At  a  dinner  I  was  next  a  lady  who  knew 
everybody,  and  there  was  a  man  at  table  whom 
she  did  not  know.   She  asked: 

"Who  is  that?" 

"Mr.  Justice  Stephen." 

"Why  have  I  never  seen  him?  He  looks  a  man 
everybody  ought  to  know.  But  it  is  a  rare 
pleasure  to  meet  somebody  you  do  not  know. " 

I  will  give  the  other  side  in  another  anecdote. 


376  Anglo-American  Memories 

A  smart  party.  A  stream  of  guests  coming  up  a 
famous  staircase.  Two  in  a  balcony  looking  down 
on  the  arrivals. 

He:  "Who  is  that?" 
She:  "I  don't  know." 
He:  " But  you  know  everybody. " 
She :  ' '  Nobody  knows  everybody.  * ' 
There  spoke  the  voice  of  authority.  Society  in 
London  is  now  so  multitudinous  that  even  a  bow- 
ing acquaintance  between  its  less  conspicuous 
members  is  not  universal.  It  was  Lady  Jeune's 
mission  to  bring  together  those  who  stood  apart. 
She  swept  into  her  net  many  a  foreigner  who  but 
for  her  might  have  remained  a  foreigner.  I  will 
venture  to  guess  that  Lady  St.  Helier's  invitation 
was  one  of  the  few  unofficial  invitations  which  Mr. 
Roosevelt  accepted  for  his  brief  stay  in  London. 
They  met  twenty  years  ago  or  more  when  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  in  London,  and  made  friends.  He 
used  to  make  friendly  inquiries  about  Mrs.  Jeune, 
as  Mrs.  Jemie  did  about  him,  year  by  year,  and  I 
often  carried  friendly  messages  from  each  to  the 
other.  She  will  surround  him  with  delightful 
people,  among  whom  there  will  be  one  or  two  or 
three  he  had  never  heard  of ;  and  when  he  has  met 
them  will  wonder  he  had  not  known  them  always. 
Lady  St.  Helier  has  published  a  book  of  Remin- 
iscences which  I  have  not  yet  read.  I  am  there- 
fore borrowing  a  little  of  her  courage  in  giving  my 
own  account  of  some  matters  which  she  may  have 
dealt  with,  and  perhaps  from  a  different  point  of 
view.     But  I  must  take  that  risk.     I  prefer  taking 


Lady  St  Helier  377 

it.  If  my  testimony,  or  anybody's  testimony,  is  to 
have  any  value  it  must  be  from  its  independence. 

Mrs.  Jeune  lived  for  many  years  in  Wimpole 
Street;  then  moved  to  Harley  Street,  and  then, 
after  Lord  St.  Helier 's  death,  in  1905,  to  Portland 
Place.  Their  place  in  the  country  was  Arlington 
Manor,  near  Newbury,  in  Berkshire,  the  scene 
of  the  battle,  in  1643,  in  which  Lord  Falkland, 
despairing  of  peace,  says  his  biographer,  threw  his 
life  away.  There  stands  a  monument  on  the 
battlefield  erected  not  many  years  ago  with  an 
inscription  by  the  late  Lord  Carnarvon,  himself  a 
kind  of  nineteenth-century  Falkland,  who  threw 
away  his  political  future  in  an  impossible  attempt 
to  come  to  terms  with  Mr.  Pamell,  Lord  Carnar- 
von also  despairing  of  peace.  The  inscription  is 
a  piece  of  literature  for  ever. 

At  Arlington  it  was  Lady  Jeune's  delight  to 
gather  about  her  some  of  the  men  and  women  she 
really  liked,  and  who  really  liked  her.  The  house 
was  not  large,  and  was  devoid  of  all  other  splen- 
dour than  such  as  the  beauty  of  its  position  and 
view  and  park  and  gardens  gave  it.  But  it  was 
the  home  of  comfort  and  charm.  Now  it  has 
passed  into  other  hands  and  Lady  St.  Helier  has 
built  herself  another  house,  known  as  Cold  Ash. 
But  the  memories  of  Arlington  will  never  pass. 

Perhaps  it  was  in  Arlington  that  Lady  Jeune's 
gifts  as  hostess  were  to  be  seen  at  their  best.  It 
is  one  thing  to  take  charge  of  a  dinner,  another  to 
handle  a  difficult  team  from  Saturday  to  Monday, 
or  often  longer.     Freedom   of   choice   is  a  thing 


37^  Anglo-American  Memories 

which  has  to  be  paid  for.  But  to  her  this  was  no 
task.  She  had  good  hands,  and  a  touch  so  deHcate 
that  you  were  guided  without  knowing  you  had 
a  bit  in  your  mouth.  It  was  a  skill  which  all 
depended  on  kindness  and  sympathy;  and  these 
belonged  to  her  in  overflowing  measure. 


CHAPTER  XL 

LORD  AND  LADY  ARTHUR  RUSSELL  AND  THE  "  SALON  '* 
IN  ENGLAND 

TTHE  recent  death  of  Lady  Arthur  Russell 
*•  diminished  by  one  the  niunber  of  accom- 
plished women  of  this  generation  who  were  dis- 
tinguished in  the  last  generation  also.  And  it 
closed  one  of  the  few  drawing-rooms  in  London 
which  have  been  salon  as  well  as  drawing-room. 
I  suppose  Lady  Arthur  herself  might  have  said 
as  she  looked  about  her  and  looked  back,  ^'Toiit 
passe.''  The  French  phrase  would  have  come 
naturally  to  her  tongue,  for  she  was  French: 
daughter  of  that  Vicomte  de  Peyronnet  who  was 
Minister  to  Charles  X.  Yet  one  was  not  often, 
at  any  rate  not  too  often,  reminded  of  her  French 
origin.  So  long  ago  as  1865  Mile,  de  Peyronnet 
married  Lord  Arthur  Russell,  brother  of  the  ninth 
Duke  of  Bedford  and  of  the  more  famous  Lord 
Odo  Russell,  afterward  the  first  Lord  Ampthill, 
long  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  where  he 
managed  to  be  on  good  terms  both  with  Prince 
Bismarck  and  the  present  Emperor;  a  feat  of 
diplomacy  almost  unique. 

It  is  eighteen  years  since  Lord  Arthur  died. 

379 


380  Anglo-American  Memories 

He  was  indisputably  of  the  last  or  an  earlier  genera- 
tion, having  little  in  common  with  the  present. 
People  thought  of  Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  as  one; 
of  itself  enough  to  identify  them  with  earlier 
times  than  those  when  husband  and  wife  are  as 
likely  to  be  met  separately  as  together.  If  there 
was  a  distinction  it  was  at  the  breakfast  hour,  at 
breakfasts  in  other  houses.  There  was  no  rule 
which  excluded  ladies  from  these  breakfasts,  but 
there  was  a  custom  which  held  good  in  the  majority 
of  cases.  The  host's  wife,  if  he  had  one,  might  or 
might  not  appear.  But  the  group  of  men  who 
were  in  the  habit  of  breakfasting  at  each  other's 
houses  included  Lord  Arthur  Russell,  Sir  Mount- 
stuart  Grant-Duff,  Lord  Reay,  Mr.  Charles  Roun- 
dell,  Air.  Albert  Rutson,  sometimes  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer,  and  many  more.  You  will  recognize 
Sir  Mountstuart  Grant-Duff's  name  as  that  of 
the  most  voluminous  diarist  of  his  time,  and  when 
you  have  read  his  six  or  seven  volumes  the  map 
of  his  life  is  spread  out  before  you;  an  honoured 
and  useful  life,  a  career  of  real  distinction.  Lord 
Arthur  had  not  Sir  Mountstuart's  ambitions;  he 
was  content  with  his  home  and  his  kin  and  his 
books. 

His  brother,  the  Duke,  had  a  habit  of  referring 
to  himself  as  Hastings  Russell.  An  alteration 
at  Wobum  Abbey  was  proposed  to  him.  "It  wiU 
not  be  made  in  the  lifetime  of  Hastings  RusseU," 
was  his  answer.  He  had  a  sense  of  humour,  which 
Mr.  Lloyd-George  must  think  a  rare  thing  in  a 
duke.     I  drove  once  from  Mentmore  to  Woburn 


Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Russell         381 

Abbey  with  Lady  Rosebery  and  her  little  girl, 
Lady  Sibyl,  then  eight  or  nine  years  old,  with  a 
gift  of  humorous  perception  rare  at  any  age  in  her 
sex.  The  child  had  a  balanced  mind  and  a  mature 
view  of  things  which  might  have  belonged  to 
eighteen  as  well  as  eight.  The  old  place  inter- 
ested her  and  she  asked  the  Duke  to  show  her  the 
whole.  He  was  delighted  and  took  us  through 
room  after  room,  each  stately  and  each  a  museum. 
Presently  we  came  to  a  rather  bare,  scantily  fur- 
nished, unhandsome  room,  and  Lady  Sibyl  asked: 

"But  what  is  this?" 

"This,  my  dear,  is  where  I  earn  my  living 
writing  cheques  for  six  hours  a  day." 

All  three  brothers,  the  Duke,  Lord  Odo,  and 
Lord  Arthur,  had  a  quiet  humour  in  common. 
Lord  Odo  had,  besides  humour,  wit.  It  was  he, 
while  Ambassador  in  Berlin  and  during  a  visit  of 
the  Shah,  when  that  great  potentate  practised  a 
less  strict  abstinence  at  dinner  than  his  religion 
demanded,  who  said  to  a  neighbour:  "After  all, 
it  's  nothing  wonderful.  You  must  remember  the 
proverb,  ^  La  nuit  tons  les  chats  sont  gris.'  "  And 
Berlin  used  to  echo  with  his  caustic,  good-natured 
speeches.  Nor  did  Berlin,  nor  perhaps  London, 
ever  forget  Prince  Bismarck's  saying: 

"I  never  knew  an  Englishman  who  spoke  French 
well  whom  I  would  trust  except  Lord  Odo. " 

After  which  I  dare  not  name  two  or  three  others 
whose  French  was  not  less  perfect  than  that 
which  Prince  Bismarck  praised.  The  Prince  was 
a  good  judge,  as  well  he  might  be,     French  had 


382  Anglo-American  Memories 

become  to  him  almost  a  second  mother  tongue ;  as, 
indeed,  it  must  be  to  a  European  diplomatist. 

To  the  list  of  men  who  were  to  be  met  in  those 
days  at  breakfasts  the  name  of  Mr.  George 
Brodrick  ought  to  be  added.  He  was  a  scholar, 
a  writer,  a  journalist,  and  one  of  those  men  who 
never  could  understand  why  the  world  would  not 
come  round  to  his  way  of  thinking  and  to  him. 
He  had  real  abilities,  which  survived  a  university 
education.  He  was  born  into  a  respectable  place 
in  the  world,  of  good  family,  with  good  oppor- 
tunities, but  was  never  a  man  of  the  world.  To 
be  of  the  world  in  the  true  sense  of  the  phrase  a 
man  must,  I  take  it,  have  a  fairly  accurate  notion 
of  his  relation  to  the  world.  That  Brodrick  had 
not.  His  ambitions  were  political,  and  most  of  all 
parliamentary ;  but  they  remained  ambitions.  He 
could  not  understand  how  to  commend  himself 
to  a  constituency;  nor  would  he  ever  have  con- 
formed to  the  inexorable  standards  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  He  expected  the  House  and  its 
standards  to  conform  to  him. 

Struggling  with  a  fine  courage  for  the  unat- 
tainable, Mr.  Brodrick  meantime  occupied  himself 
with  journalism,  and  was  for  many  years  a  lieader- 
writer  on  The  Times.  The  story  which  points  his 
intense  self -concentration  as  well  as  any  other 
connects  itself  with  that  period.  He  was  a  guest 
in  a  house  in  Scotland,  and  while  there  continued 
the  composition  of  those  more  or  less  Addisonian 
and  rather  academic  essays  which,  when  printed 
on   the   leader   page   of    The    Thunderer,   became 


Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Russell         383 

leaders,  and  very  good  leaders  of  their  kind. 
He  saw  fit  to  write  them  in  the  drawing-room  and 
in  the  morning  when  men  are  commonly  supposed 
to  be  elsewhere.  There  were  ladies  and  they 
talked.  Presently  Mr.  Brodrick  rose,  marched 
over  to  his  hostess  and  said  to  her:  "Lady  X.,  I 
really  must  ask  you  to  ask  these  ladies  not  to 
carry  on  their  conversation  in  this  room.  I  am 
engaged  tipon  a  most  important  article  and  my 
thoughts  are  distracted  by  talk  which  has  no 
importance  at  all." 

His  appearance  and  dress  were  those  of  a  man 
who  gave  no  thought  to  either.  He  was  rather 
tall,  angular,  uncouth,  a  stoop  in  the  shoulders, 
and  his  figure  consisted  of  K's.  He  had  the  pro- 
jecting teeth  which  French  caricaturists  used  to 
give  to  English  "meesses,"  in  whom  it  is  extremely 
rare.  Some  person  of  genius  untempered  with 
mercy  called  him  "Curius  Dentatus";  and  the 
nickname  lasted  as  long  as  Brodrick  lasted.  With 
his  teeth,  and  his  knees  and  elbows  sawing  the  air, 
and  his  umbrella,  and  his  horse  all  ribs,  he  was  the 
delight  of  the  Row.  Everybody  liked  him  but 
everybody  laughed  at  him.  In  the  end  he  re- 
nounced journalism  and  renounced  politics  and 
became  Warden  of  Merton.  It  was  thought  he 
would  not  be  a  good  Head  of  a  College  nor  get 
on  with  his  students,  but  he  falsified  aU  predictions, 
governed  wisely  and  well,  won  the  affection  of  the 
boys  under  him,  and  died  lamented.  I  suppose  the 
explanation  is  that  he  had  at  bottom  a  genuine 
sincerity  of  nature. 


384  Anglo-American  Memories 

But  I  am  wandering  far  and  I  retiim  to  Lady 
Arthur  and  her  house  and  her  guests. 

The  form  of  salon  which  Lady  Arthur  Russell 
preferred  was  a  salon  preceded  by  a  dinner.  It 
was  never  a  large  dinner.  Except  in  a  few  houses, 
the  banquets  of  forty  or  fifty  people  or  more  so 
dear  to  the  New  York  hostess  are  not  given  in 
London,  nor  is  mere  bigness  reckoned  an  element 
of  social  success.  In  the  biggest  capital-  of  the 
world,  where  society  far  exceeds  in  numbers  the 
society  of  any  other  capital,  people  are  content 
with  moderation.  A  dinner  of  forty  people  is  a 
lottery  in  which  each  guest  has  two  chances  and 
no  more.  His  luck  and  his  hopes  of  being  a,mused 
or  interested  depend  wholly  on  his  right-  and  left- 
hand  neighbours. 

Lady  Arthur,  being  by  birth  a  Frenchwoman, 
had  French  ideas  on  this  and  other  subjects.  She 
did  not  choose  her  guests  alphabetically,  nor  by 
rank,  nor  for  the  sake  of  a  passing  notoriety. 
Lions  you  might  meet  at  her  house  but  they  were 
not  expected  to  roar;  nor  did  they.  Neither  at 
dinner  nor  after  dinner  were  more  people  asked 
than  could  be  managed.  Large  parties  are,  of 
course,  given  in  London  but  they  do  not  constitute 
a  salon.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  a  salon  that  people 
shall  not  be  left  wholly  to  themselves,  as  in  a  large 
party  they  must  be,  but  shall  be  looked  after. 
Affinities  do  not  always  find  themselves.  They 
have  to  be  brought  together.  Others  have  to  be 
kept  apart.  No  authority  is  needed.  Intuitions, 
a  quick  eye  for  situations,  and  a  gentle  skill  in  dis- 


Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Russell         385 

tribution  are  the  gifts  which  go  to  the  making  of  a 
good  hostess.  These  Lady  Arthur  had.  By  mere 
smartness  she  set  little  store.  I  suppose  the  house 
in  Audley  Square  which  Lord  Arthur  Russell  built 
never  passed  for  a  particularly  smart  house.  Of 
houses  which  are  called  and  which  are  "smart" 
there  are  scores  in  London.  Of  salons  there  are 
very  few.  Herself  the  daughter  of  a  French  vis- 
count, and  with  her  husband  brother  to  a  duke, 
Lady  Arthur  had  no  particular  need  to  concern 
herself  about  mere  smartness.  That  is  a  reputation 
not  altogether  difficult  to  acquire.  The  King's 
smile  may  confer  it.  Not,  perhaps,  the  late  Queen's 
of  whom  one  more  than  usually  brilliant  butterfly 
remarked : 

"But  the  Queen,  you  know,  never  was  in 
society." 

Which  perhaps,  in  the  sense  intended,  was  true. 

If  there  were  one  note  more  marked  than  another 
in  these  Audley  Square  assemblies  it  was  a  note  of 
culture.  Ease  and  good  breeding  and  distinction 
may  all  be  taken  for  granted.  Tt  is  of  the  things 
which  may  not  be  taken  for  granted  that  I  speak; 
and  culture  certainly  may  not.  There  are  many 
houses  in  London  in  which  it  is  neither  expected 
nor  desired.  In  New  York,  as  we  all  know,  it  is 
discouraged.  It  would  be  discouraged  anjrwhere 
if  it  were  obtrusive  or  pedantic.  Neither  in  a 
salon  nor  Bnywheve  else  is  it  to  supersede  good 
manners,  but  to  blend  with  them.  To  make  a  salon 
possible  there  must  be  varied  interests,  play  of  mind, 
flexibility,  adaptability,  and  an  unlimited  supply  of 


386  Anglo-American  Memories 

tact.  Perhaps  the  last  includes  all  social  gifts 
except  those  of  the  intellect.  It  covers  a  multitude 
of  deficiencies.  Nay,  there  was  Miss  Ada  Reeve, 
a  clever  actress  who  last  year  was  discussing  on 
the  stage  questions  of  costume  (elsewhere  than  on 
the  stage),  and  announced: 

"If  a  woman  has  tact  and  diamonds  she  needs 
nothing  else." 

Most  of  the  generalities  which  you  have  been 
reading  are  really  particulars  and  are  descriptive 
of  Lady  Arthur  Russell's  receptions,  of  which  I 
have  spoken  as  a  salon.  I  don't  know  that  Lady 
Arthur  herself  ever  used  the  word,  nor  does  it  mat- 
ter. The  thing,  not  the  name,  is  what  matters. 
There  was  culture,  of  a  very  unusual  kind,  on  both 
sides  of  the  house.  There  was,  on  Lady  Arthur's 
side,  her  French  blood.  A  salon  in  Paris  is  no  rare 
thing,  and  the  reason  why  it  is  not  rare  is  because 
the  society  of  Paris  is  French.  In  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain,  if  nowhere  else,  the  social  traditions 
of  the  old  monarchy  in  its  most  brilliant  days  still 
survive. 

One  of  the  noticeable  things  about  this  house 
in  Audley  Square  was  the  presence  of  distinguished 
foreigners,  and  another  was  that  they  seemed  no 
longer  to  consider  themselves  foreigners.  They 
were  at  home.  Nor  was  this  true  only  of  men  and 
women  of  rank  who  might  be  of  kin  to  the  Peyronnet  s, 
and  at  any  rate  were  of  their  world,  but  of  artists 
and  men  of  letters.  I  will  take  M.  Renan  as  an 
example.  He  had  come  to  London  to  deliver  the 
Hibbert  lectures  and  a  lecture  on  Marcus  Aurelius 


Lord  and  Lady  Arthur  Russell         387 

before  the  Royal  Institution  in  Albemarle  Street, 
of  which  the  ever  lamented  Tyndall  was  then  at 
the  head.  I  had  met  Renan  twice  at  other  houses. 
He  seemed  a  little  depayse.  In  Audley  Square  this 
exotic  and  troubled  air  had  disappeared.  He  had 
no  English — at  any  rate,  he  spoke  none — and  his 
conversation,  or  the  conversation  of  the  English 
with  him,  was  therefore  limited.  But  when  he 
talked,  and  often  when  he  did  not,  he  was  surround- 
ed by  a  crowd  of  listeners  or,  as  the  case  might  be, 
of  lookers-on.  Hence  it  was  that  he  was  so  often 
kept,  or  left,  standing,  and  his  physical  frame  was 
of  such  a  kind  that  long  standing  was  irksome  to 
him,  and  even  painful.  I  noticed  one  night  that 
he  seemed  ill  at  ease,  and  said  to  him  I  hoped  he 
was  not  suffering. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "that  is  exactly  it ;  I  am  souffrant, 
and  if  I  have  to  stand  much  longer  I  don't  know 
what  will  happen." 

"But  why  don't  you  sit  down?" 

"Oh,  do  you  think  I  might?" 

So  I  took  him  to  a  comfortable  sofa  and,  once 
seated,  an  ineffable  sweet  peace  stole  over  his 
features. 

A  more  tragic  incident  happened  in  Count  von 
Arnim's  case,  the  end  of  whose  career  was  all 
tragedy.  At  this  time  he  was  still  German  Am- 
bassador in  Paris,  but  Prince  Bismarck  had  become 
distrustful  of  him  and  the  end  was  not  far  off.  The 
public,  however,  knew  nothing;  least  of  all  the 
English  public,  whose  acquaintance  with  occur- 
rences on  the  Continent  is  apt  to  be  remote.     For 


388  Anglo-American  Memories 

aught  that  was  known  in  London,  Count  von  Amim 
was  still  the  trusted  representative  of  Germany. 
He  bore  a  great  name,  he  held  a  great  position.  The 
personal  impression  was  a  Httle  disappointing.  He 
did  not  look  like  the  man  to  stand  up  to  Prince 
Bismarck,  who  was  a  giant  in  stature  as  well  as  in 
character ;  nor  was  he.  Slight,  rather  short,  lacking 
in  distinction,  meagre  in  face,  with  no  hint  of  power 
in  the  shape  of  his  head  or  in  his  rather  furtive  ex- 
pression, or  in  his  carriage,  he  seemed,  on  the  whole, 
insignificant.  The  eyes  had  no  fire  in  them;  he 
looked  older  than  his  years,  and  unequal  to  his 
renown. 

It  was  the  custom  in  those  distant  days  to  serve 
tea  in  the  drawing-room  a'fter  dinner.  Count  von 
Amim  was  asked  if  he  would  take  tea,  left  the  lady 
by  whom  he  was  sitting,  crossed  the  floor  to  the  tea- 
table,  took  his  cup  of  tea  from  Lady  Arthur's  hand, 
and  started  on  his  return.  The  floor  was  of  polish- 
ed oak,  with  here  and  there  a  rug;  just  the  sort  of 
floor  to  which  he  must  have  been  used  to  all  his 
life.  But  he  slipped,  his  feet  flew  from  under  him, 
and  down  came  the  Ambassador  on  his  back.  It 
was  an  awful  moment.  Men  went  to  his  rescue,  he 
was  helped  up,  evidently  much  shaken,  and  slowly 
found  his  way  back  to  the  sofa  and  to  the  lady 
who  had  been  his  companion.  There  were  almost 
tears  in  his  eyes.  When,  a  little  later,  the  news  of 
his  disgrace  became  known,  a  man  said:  "Well, 
if  he  could  not  keep  his  feet  in  a  drawing-room, 
what  chance  had  he  against  Prince  Bismarck." 


CHAPTER  XLI 

THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF    CANTERBURY — QUEEN 
ALEXANDRA 

WHEN  the  Radical  rages  against  the  House  of 
Lords  he  commonly  selects  as  the  most  de- 
serving object  of  his  wrath  the  Lords  Spiritual. 
Wicked  as  the  Lords  Temporal  are,  their  episcopal 
comrades  are  more  wicked  still.  This  is,  or  was, 
more  peculiarly  the  Nonconformist  point  of  view. 
A  Dissenter  exists  in  order  to  hate  a  Bishop.  He 
hates  him  as  a  rival  in  religion;  a  successful  rival. 
He  hates  him  as  the  visible  sign  of  that  social 
ascendancy  of  the  Church  which  is  to  the  Dissenter 
not  less  odious  than  its  political  and  ecclesiastical 
primacy. 

He  hates  him  also  because  he  is  rich,  or  is 
supposed  to  be  so.  The  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury's £15,000  a  year,  his  Palace  at  Lambeth, 
and  his  Old  Palace  at  Canterbury  are  all  alike  to 
the  true  Dissenter  so  many  proofs  of  the  Devil's 
handiwork.  The  Archbishop  of  York  is  a  sinner 
of  less  degree  only  because  his  Devil's  pension  is 
less  by  £5000  a  year.  The  Bishop  of  London  has 
the  same  salary  as  the  Archbishop  of  York,  and  his 
iniquity,  though  he  is  only  a  Bishop,  is  therefore 

389 


390  Anglo-American  Memories 

the  same.  There  is,  then,  a  descending  scale 
of  financial  depravity.  Beginning,  next  after 
London,  with  the  Bishop  of  Durham  at  £7000, 
we  come  to  the  Bishop  of  Ely  with  £5500,  the 
Bishops  of  Oxford,  of  Bath  and  Wells,  and  of  Salis- 
bury with  £5000  each,  and  so,  by  easy  stages  of 
lessening  vice,  to  the  pauper  Bishop  of  Sodor 
and  Man  who  gets  but  a  pittance  of  £1500  a 
year. 

Our  Dissenting  friend  waxes  hotter  as  he  reflects 
that  one  Archbishop  is  paid  three  times  as  much  as 
a  Prime  Minister,  and  the  other  twice  as  much, 
while  three  or  four  more  Bishops  receive  stipends 
larger  than  the  present  colleague  of  Mr.  Lloyd - 
George  and  Mr.  Winston  Churchill.  These  episco- 
pal salaries  are  even  higher  than  is  that  of  Mr. 
Lloyd-George,  or  that  of  Mr.  Winston  Churchill, 
who  has  to  content  himself  with  £5000  a  year  while 
discharging  not  a  few  of  the  duties  of  the  Prime 
Minister,  on  the  platform  and,  if  all  reports  be 
true,  in  the  Cabinet  itself. 

This,  perhaps,  is  rather  incidental.  I  was  ex- 
plaining why  the  Dissenter  hates  the  Bishop.  The 
attitude  of  the  Bishops  to  the  vital  question  of 
Education  augments  the  animosity  of  the  Dissenter. 
Their  conservatism  in  general  politics  inflames  their 
opponents  still  further.  To  the  Nonconformist 
orator  they  are  an  unfailing  target,  and  he  ought 
to  be  very  much  obliged  to  them  for  supplying  him 
with  ammunition,  but  is  not.  Mr.  Bright  thun- 
dered against  them  and  their  ''adulterous  origin. " 
Mr.  Bright's  wrath,  whether  rightly  directed  or 


The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury        391 

not,  was  in  itself  a  noble  thing;  the  passion  of 
a  great  soul  greatly  stirred. 

Just  at  present  the  Bishops  are  a  little  less  ob- 
noxious to  the  Radical  than  usual,  because  they 
followed  the  Radical  lead  on  the  Licensing  Bill. 
That  Bill  evoked  animosities  not  less  bitter  than  the 
Education  Bill.  The  Bishops  made  it  a  question 
of  temperance,  holding  that  by  higher  licensing 
fees  and  heavier  taxes  on  public-houses  and  on 
liquor  the  consumption  of  spirits  would  be  lessened. 
They  argued  that  if  there  were  fewer  public-houses 
there  would  be  fewer  drinkers  and  drunkards. 
They  applauded  Mr.  Asquith  when  he  proposed 
that  on  Sundays  a  man  should  walk  six  miles  before 
he  could  have  a  glass  of  beer;  for  that  is  what  the 
bona  fide  traveller  clause  came  to.  If  they  had 
the  influence  with  their  fellow-Peers  they  are  sup- 
posed to  have  they  could  have  prevented  the  re- 
jection of  the  Licensing  Bill.  But  they  could  not 
do  that.  Then  the  Radicals  turned  on  them  be- 
cause they  could  not  control  a  House  where  their 
very  presence  is  to  the  Radical  a  continuing  offence. 
"The  Brewers  are  stronger  than  the  Bishops!" 
cried  the  Radical,  to  whose  happiness  a  victim  of 
one  kind  or  another  is  essential. 

The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  led  his  brethren 
of  the  Episcopal  Bench  in  this  matter  of  Temper- 
ance, as  he  has  led  them  on  other  matters.  He 
is  their  nattu'al  leader.  He  is  the  Primate  of  all 
England;  the  Head  of  the  Church,  next  after  the 
King.  His  abilities  and  character  are  of  a  kind 
to  fit  him  for  leadership.     I  suppose  it  may  sound 


392  Anglo-American  Memories 

like  a  paradox  if  I  suggest  that  for  him  who  holds 
the  highest  ecclesiastical  post  in  the  land  the  first 
requisite  is  that  he  should  be  a  man  of  the  world. 
But  it  is  true,  and  it  is  equally  true  of  all  Bishops. 
It  was  true  of  the  late  Bishop  Potter,  who  was  not 
only  the  most  eminent  dignitary  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church,  but  almost  the  first  citizen  of 
New  York.  The  Bishops  have  to  administer  each 
his  own  diocese,  and  a  diocese  is  a  province.  They 
must  understand  how  to  govern.  They  must 
understand  men  and,  so  far  as  possible,  women. 
They  must  be  men  of  affairs.  Whether  they 
know  much  Greek  or  Hebrew  is  of  quite  secondary 
importance.  Knowledge  of  that  kind  is  orna- 
mental; the  other  kind  is  essential.  They  ought 
to  be  diplomatists  also;  skilled  not  so  much  in 
controversy  as  in  avoiding  controversy. 

The  present  Archbishop  is  all  this.  His  public 
career  proves  it,  and  if  you  come  to  know  him  he 
will  leave  a  very  distinct  personal  impression  on 
your  mind.  It  was  my  fortune  to  meet  him  at 
Dalmeny  House  not  many  years  ago,  while  he  was 
still  Bishop  of  Winchester.  His  visit  lasted  some 
days,  and  there  have  not  been  many  days  more 
interesting.  Except  for  his  clothes,  and  perhaps 
for  a  certain  sweetness  of  manner,  you  need  not 
have  supposed  him  to  be  a  Bishop.  He  did  not 
talk  shop.  He  talked  as  others  talk  who  are 
not  of  the  Church.  At  once  you  saw  he  was 
broad-minded.  I  do  not  use  the  word  broad  in  its 
ecclesiastical  sense.  There  was  not  a  suggestion 
of   the   apostolic   or  missionary   attitude.     That 


The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury        393 

was  for  another  place  and  other  circumstances. 
Nihil  humani  might  have  been  his  motto,  if  he  had 
a  motto.  He  talked  well,  clearly,  picturesquely, 
and  in  the  tone  which  any  guest  in  a  country 
house  might  use.  He  did  not  require  you  to 
remember  that  he  was  a  Bishop,  or  even  a  priest. 
He  was  just  himself.  His  knowledge  and  good 
sense  and  felicity  of  thought  and  speech  were 
his  own. 

Queen  Alexandra  came  to  tea.  The  Archbishop, 
as  the  Rev.  Randall  Davidson,  had  been  for  eight 
years  Dean  of  Windsor,  and  naturally  had  seen 
much  of  the  Royal  Family.  I  suppose  I  may  say 
that  he  had  in  time  become  a  trusted  friend  of 
the  Queen,  perhaps  her  most  trusted  adviser. 
People  who  opposed  his  promotion  called  him  a 
courtier,  as  any  man  who  lives  much  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  courts  may  be.  It  was  easy  to  see  from 
the  Queen's  manner  how  much  she  liked  the  Bishop 
and  looked  to  him  for  counsel.  If  a  point  were 
in  question,  it  was  to  him  she  turned.  The  Prin- 
cess Victoria  was  with  the  Queen  ^  and  there  too  was 
a  friendship. 

Those  were  days  when  affairs  in  the  United  States 
were  in  a  critical  state,  or  seemed  to  be,  and  when 
we  were  beginning  to  think  that  the  good-will  of 
other  countries  might  be  important  to  us;  as  it 
was,  and  always  will  be,  as  ours  is  to  them. 
So  I  hope  I  shall  not  do  amiss  if  I  repeat  now  a 
word  which  the  Queen  then  said  to  me: 

"I  hope  all  the  news  from  your  own  country  is 
good.     We  all  hope  that." 


394  Anglo-American  Memories 

That  expressed  the  Queen's  personal,  womanly- 
sympathy,  and  something  more.  Far  gone  were 
the  days  when  English  sympathies  were  for  our 
enemies.  They  are  now  for  us,  and  Queen  Victoria 
was  our  friend  and  Queen  Alexandra  and  the  late 
King  were  our  friends.  They  shared  the  friendship 
of  their  people.  The  Queen  spoke  for  herself  and 
for  them.  The  Bishop  stood  by  Her  Alajesty's 
side  as  she  said  it.  His  face  brightened.  He 
knew,  as  well  as  anybody,  how  much  it  meant. 


CHAPTER  XLII 


A  SCOTTISH  LEGEND 


AMONG  the  recollections  of  Scotland  which 
come  thronging  on  from  other  days,  the  super- 
natural always  plays  a  part.  I  admit  they  are  not 
easy  to  deal  with.  If  you  believe  in  ghosts  or  in 
legends,  a  great  majority  of  your  readers  do  not 
believe  in  you.  If  you  are  a  sceptic,  the  credulous 
pass  you  by  with  an  air  of  pained  superiority.  If 
you  neither  believe  nor  disbelieve,  you  are  set 
down  as  an  agnostic;  and  there  are  great  nimibers 
of  excellent  people  to  whom  the  word  agnostic 
implies  reproach.  An  agnostic,  however,  is  not 
one  who  believes  or  disbelieves,  but  who,  whatever 
his  private  conviction  may  be,  declines  either  to 
affirm  or  deny  the  truth  of  the  matter  in  question. 

But,  although  an  unbeliever,  I  know  of  one  story 
connecting  itself  with  a  famous  legend,  which  is, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  absolutely  true,  and  this  I  am  going 
to  tell  exactly  as  it  happened. 

In  1883  I  was  staying  at  Brechin  Castle  with 
Lord  and  Lady  Dalhousie,  and  Lady  Dalhousie 
proposed  one  morning  that  we  should  drive  over 
to  Cortachy  Castle  to  lunch.  Brechin  Castle  and 
Cortachy  Castle  are  both  in  Forfarshire  and  four- 

395 


396  Anglo-American  Memories 

teen  miles  apart.  At  that  time  Cortachy  Castle 
was  let  to  the  late  Earl  of  Dudley;  the  seventh 
Earl  of  Airlie  to  whom  it  belonged  having  lately 
died.  There  's  a  tragic  atmosphere  for  the  eighth 
Earl  was  killed  at  Diamond  Hill  in  South  Africa 
in  1900;  one  of  the  many  men  of  rank  and  position 
and  fortune  and  everything  to  live  for  who,  in  the 
early  disastrous  days  of  the  Boer  War,  gave  up 
everything  to  fight  for  the  flag  and  for  their  country 
and  sovereign. 

The  family  name  is  Ogilvy,  and  the  family  name 
and  title  are  both  old,  going  back  to  at  least  1491. 
They  were  Ambassadors  and  great  officers  of  State, 
and  the  seventh  Lord  Ogilvy  was  made  an  Earl. 
Two  acts  of  attainder  are  testimony  to  the  active 
part  they  took  in  those  troubled  times,  and  to  their 
capacity  for  holding  fast  to  the  losing  side.  They 
were  in  the  Earl  of  Mar's  rebellion  in  17 15,  and 
fought  for  the  Pretender  at  Culloden. 

Besides  all  that,  the  Ogilvy s  carried  on  for 
generations  a  feud  with  the  Campbells.  On  both 
sides  there  were  burnings  and  harry ings  and  much 
shedding  of  blood.  There 's  no  need  to  ask  which 
of  them  was  the  more  in  fault.  The  standards  of 
those  days  were  not  as  the  standards  of  ours;  and 
there  was  a  good  deal  less  of  that  homage  which 
vice  now  pays  to  virtue.  So  it  happened  that 
one  day  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  the 
Ogilvys  found  themselves  besieged  in  Cortachy 
Castle  by  the  then  Earl  of  Argyll  or  his  Heutenant. 
The  besiegers  sent  in  a  herald  with  a  drummer-boy 
to    demand    the    surrender    of    the    castle.     The 


A  Scottish  Legend  397 

Ogilvy  people  took  the  drummer-boy  and  hanged 
him  over  the  battlements,  his  mother  looking  from 
the  camp  outside.  As  the  fashion  was  in  those 
days,  she  launched  a  curse,  or  more  than  one,  at 
the  Ogilvys,  and  a  prophecy.  She  foretold  that 
whenever,  through  all  the  ages  to  come,  death  or 
disaster  should  visit  them  they  would  first  hear 
the  beating  of  the  drum  by  the  drummer-boy. 

Such  is  the  story  as  it  was  told  to  me.  It  is 
a  well-known  tradition,  and  you  are  told  also  that 
her  prophecy  has  been  strictly  fulfilled.  The 
beating  of  the  drum  by  the  drummer-boy  has  been 
heard  at  least  once  in  each  generation  during  the 
centuries  that  ever  since  then  have  witnessed  the 
varying  fortunes  of  this  family.  That  is  a  matter 
as  to  which  I  neither  affirm  nor  deny.  How  could 
I?  I  was  not  there.  But  the  narrative  is  a  neces- 
sary preface  to  the  account  of  the  day  when  the 
events  I  set  out  to  describe  did  actually  occur. 

At  luncheon  Lady  Dudley,  known  then  and  still 
as  the  beautiful  Lady  Dudley,  told  us  that  when 
Lord  Hardwicke,  one  of  the  guests  staying  with 
them,  came  down  to  breakfast  that  morning  he 
asked  her  whether  the  drummer-boy  legend  applied 
to  the  tenants  of  the  castle  for  the  time  being  or 
only  to  the  Ogilvys. 

"Oh,  only  to  the  Ogilvys,  of  course." 

"Then  you  won't  mind  my  telling  you  that  I 
heard  the  dnmimer-boy  beating  his  drum  last 
night." 

And  Lady  Dudley  added: 

"  I  did  not  mind  in  the  least.     Whether  I  believe 


398  Anglo-American  Memories 

in  the  menace  or  not,  I  never  heard  that  it  had 
anything  to  do  with  anybody  but  the  Ogilvys.  If 
it  could  effect  anybody  in  this  case  it  would  be  Lord 
Hardwicke,  who  heard  it,  and  not  us  who  did  not 
hear  it." 

With  which  we  naturally  agreed.  We  finished 
our  lunch  peacefully  and  pleasantly,  and  at  three 
o'clock  Lady  Dalhousie  and  I  drove  back  to  Brech- 
in Castle,  where  there  were  in  all  twelve  guests. 
We  dined  as  usual  at  a  quarter  past  eight,  and 
shortly  before  ten  the  ladies  left  the  dining-room. 
Just  after  ten  the  door  opened  again.  Lady  Dal- 
housie sailed  in,  her  face  brilliant  with  excitement, 
but  her  manner  serene  as  usual,  and  said  to  her 
husband : 

''Dalhousie,  Cortachy  Castle  is  burnt  to  the 
ground;  the  Dudleys  are  here  and  you  must 
come  at  once." 

At  the  drawing-room  door  stood  Lady  Dudley, 
pale  and  beautiful,  and  warned  us  that  her  husband 
knew  as  yet  nothing  of  what  had  happened,  and 
asked  us  to  be  careful  to  say  nothing  which  should 
alarm  him.  He  was  at  that  time  very  ill,  and  his 
mind  was  affected.  The  rest  of  the  evening  after 
we  went  into  the  drawing-room  passed  without  any 
mention  of  the  disaster  to  Cortachy.  Lord  Dudley 
sat  down  to  his  rubber  of  whist,  won  it,  and  went 
to  bed  not  knowing  that  the  house  in  which  he  had 
expected  to  sleep  had  been  destroyed  by  fire. 
When  he  was  told  next  morning  he  said,  "Very 
well,"  and  turned  again  to  his  newspaper. 

The  explanation  was  this :    After  Lady  Dalhousie 


A  Scottish  Legend  399 

and  I  left  Cortachy  Lady  Dudley  took  her  husband 
for  a  drive,  as  usual.  As  they  were  returning,  late, 
they  were  stopped  by  a  messenger  who  handed 
Lady  Dudley  a  note  from  the  factor,  saying  the 
castle  was  on  fire  and  there  was  no  hope  of  saving 
it. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Lord  Dudley. 

"Oh,  nothing  much, ' '  answered  his  wife.  '  *  The 
kitchen  chimney  has  been  on  fire  and  the  place  is 
in  a  mess.  I  think  we  had  better  drive  over  to 
Brechin  and  ask  the  Dalhousies  to  give  us  dinner. " 

This  ready  wit  carried  the  day  and  saved  Lord 
Dudley  the  shock  which  his  wife  dreaded.  But 
the  whole  company  of  guests  at  Cortachy  were 
also  left  homeless,  and  they  also  came  to  Brechin 
and  slept  there.  I  never  quite  understood  how, 
for  Brechin  Castle  can  put  up,  in  a  normal  way, 
fourteen  people,  and  we  slept  that  night  fifty-six. 
But  Lady  Dalhousie  besides  being  a  reigning  beauty, 
had  practical  talents  and  managed  it  all  as  if  an 
inundation  of  unexpected  guests  were  an  everyday 
affair. 

There  is  one  thing  to  be  added.  Past  Cortachy 
Castle  flows  a  shallow  stream  with  a  stony  bed. 
It  was  early  in  September.  The  water  was  very 
low,  and  what  there  was  rippled  and  broke  over 
the  stones  with  a  noise  which,  at  night  and  amid 
uncertain  slumbers,  might  easily  be  mistaken  for 
the  beating  of  a  drum  by  a  man  whose  mind  was 
full  of  the  dnmimer-boy  story.  After  I  had  heard 
about  Lord  Hardwicke  at  luncheon  I  had  walked 
along  the  banks  of  this  burn,  and  the  faint  likeness 


400  Anglo-American  Memories 

of  the  waters  beating  on  the  stones  to  the  beat- 
ing of  a  drum  occurred  to  me.  Perhaps  a  mere 
fancy  on  my  part.  I  don't  press  it.  If  anybody 
prefers  to  beHeve  in  the  legend  I  don't  ask  him  to 
believe  in  my  conjecture.  By  all  means  let  him 
nourish  his  own  faith  in  his  own  way. 

He  may  like  to  know,  moreover,  that  Lord  Hard- 
wicke,  now  dead,  was  one  of  the  last  persons  in  the 
world  to  conceive  or  cherish  an  illusion.  A  well- 
known  man  of  the  world;  in  his  way  a  celebrity, 
if  only  known  for  his  hats,  which  were  the  glossiest 
ever  seen  outside  of  the  stock  Exchange.  He  had 
gone  the  pace;  "climbed  outside  of  every  stick  of 
property  he  possessed,"  said  one  of  his  friends, 
and  had  acquired  a  vast  and  varied  stock  of  ex- 
perience in  the  process.  On  the  face  of  it,  not  at 
all  the  kind  of  man  to  believe  too  much ;  nor  to 
believe  in  an)rthing,  as  was  said  of  Mr.  Lowe,  which 
he  could  not  bite. 

He  came  into  the  dining-room  that  night  at 
Brechin  and  stayed  on  the  next  day.  Among 
Lady  Dalhousie's  guests  was  Mr.  Huxley.  Certain- 
ly a  man  of  the  world  was  Mr.  Huxley,  but  of  a 
different  world  from  Lord  Hardwicke's.  They  had 
never  met.  You  might  have  said  they  had  not  a 
subject  in  common.  But  they  talked  to  each  other, 
and  to  the  suprise  of  the  company  it  presently  be- 
came evident  that  they  got  on  together.  I  said 
as  much  to  Mr.  Huxley  afterward.  He  answered 
in  his  decisive  way: 

"Don't  make  any  mistake.  Lord  Hardwicke 
has  powers  of  mind  for  which  even  his  own  set,  so 


A  Scottish  Legend  401 

far  as  I  know,  has  never  given  him  credit.  We 
did  not  talk  about  the  weather.  He  was  a  man 
who  would  put  his  mind  to  yours  no  matter  what 
you  talked  about,  and  it  would  take  you  all  your 
time  to  keep  up  with  him." 

Years  afterward  I  reminded  Mr.  Huxley  of  this, 
and  asked  him  had  he  ever  met  Lord  Hardwicke 
again. 

"No,  never;  and  I  regret  it.  But  we  did  not 
move  quite  in  the  same  orbits.  I  have  hardly  seen 
anybody  since  who  made  such  an  impression  on  me. 
It 's  not  a  question  of  orbits,  it  's  a  question  of 
men." 

I  asked  Lord  Hardwicke  about  the  same  time 
whether  he  remembered  meeting  Mr.  Huxley. 

"Remember?  How  many  Huxleys  are  there  in 
the  world  that  you  should  suppose  I  could  forget 
this  one?" 

It  is  one  of  the  distinctions  of  English  life  in 

general,  and  of  London,  to  which  New  York  will 

perhaps  some  day  attain,  that  sooner  or  later  it 

brings  together  men  and  women,  each  of  the  first 

rank  in  his  or  her  own  department  and  each  unlike 

the  other.     They  have  long  understood  here  that 

a  society  which  is  not  various  ends  in  monotony; 

and  of  all  forms  of  dulness  that  is  the  dullest. 
26 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

A  PERSONAL  REMINISCENCE  OF  THE  LATE  EMPEROR 
FREDERICK 

TT  used  to  be  said  that  English  sympathies 
•■•  were  given  to  Austria  and  not  to  Prussia  in 
the  war  of  1866  because  the  Austrian  railway 
officials  were  so  much  more  polite  than  the  Prussian. 
Of  the  fact  that  the  English  wished  Austria  and 
not  Prussia  to  win  there  is  no  doubt.  The  railway 
reason  was  perhaps  a  reason,  if  not  the  reason. 
The  organization  of  Prussia  was  at  that  time,  as 
the  organization  of  Germany,  civil  and  military, 
now  is,  the  finest  in  the  world.  But  flexibility  is 
not  one  of  its  merits;  still  less  is  it  distinguished 
by  consideration  for  the  rights  of  the  non-military 
and  non-official  German  world.  The  English  were 
then,  as  now,  a  travelling  people;  and  their  author- 
ity, if  I  may  use  such  a  word,  on  the  Continent  was 
greater,  or  seemed  greater,  then  than  now,  because 
the  competition  was  less.  Americans  had  not 
then  begun  to  swarm  across  the  Atlantic  as  tourists, 
nor  was  the  American  language  heard  on  every 
hill-side  of  the  Tyrol  and  on  the  battlefields  of 
Silesia.  It  was  all  English,  and  the  English  beyond 
question  found  Austria  a  more  agreeable  pleasure- 

402 


The  Late  Emperor  Frederick         403 

ground  than  the  wind-swept  plateaus  of  her  grim 
neighbour  to  the  north. 

In  those  days  and  for  many  years  to  come  the 
English  had  taken  and  kept  possession  of  Homburg, 
the  pretty  watering-place  near  Frankfort.  As  in 
so  many  other  matters,  the  fashion  was  set  by  the 
late  King,  then  Prince  of  Wales,  whom  his  fellow- 
subjects,  and  presently  not  a  few  Americans,  fol- 
lowed in  a  loyal  spirit.  They  followed  him  not  less 
loyally  when  he  forsook  Homburg  and  journeyed 
further  afield  to  Marienbad.  For  the  truth  is 
the  Germans,  and  especially  the  North  Germans, 
had  rediscovered  Homburg,  and  the  streets  where 
for  so  many  years  the  English  accent  had  been 
heard,  and  almost  no  other,  grew  suddenly  hoarse 
with  Teutonic  gutturals.  I  don't  say  that 
this  invasion  drove  him  elsewhere.  He  was  him- 
self as  much  German  as  English.  But  when  his 
yearly  visits  in  August  ceased  the  English  sur- 
rendered Homburg  to  its  real  owners,  albeit  they 
rather  resented  what  they  called  their  usur- 
pation. 

There  was,  however,  one  English  woman  who 
climg  to  it,  the  Empress  Frederick,  the  late  King's 
eldest  sister  and  Princess  Royal  of  the  United 
Kingdom.  Her  Royal  Highness  had  married  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Prussia,  afterward  the  Emperor 
Frederick,  in  1858,  being  then  just  over  seventeen 
years  of  age.  For  many  years  she  spent  part  of 
each  summer  in  the  old  Schloss,  just  outside  the 
little  town;  then  later  built  herself  a  showy  villa 
on  the  other  flank,  and  died  there  in  August,  1901. 


404  Anglo-American  Memories 

I  don't  think  the  late  King  had  ever  revisited 
Homburg   after  that  date. 

She  liked  the  place ;  liked  its  pure  air,  its  scenery, 
the  hills,  and  woods  amid  which  it  lay  embosomed ; 
its  pleasant  walks  and  the  pleasant  life  its  visitors 
led,  and  some  of  its  residents,  though,  except  the 
Princess  herself,  and  the  hotel-keepers  and  the  gar- 
rison for  the  time  being,  I  hardly  know  who  the 
residents  were.  It  was,  moreover,  a  great  resort  of 
invalids  who  were  not  ill  enough  to  be  sent  to  a 
serious  cure.  Many  a  doctor,  in  London  and  else- 
where, had  for  a  maxim:  "When  in  doubt,  choose 
Homburg. "  Its  waters  could  do  you  no  harm. 
Its  climate  was  sure  to  do  you  good.  And  its  ani- 
mation, its  gaiety,  its  brilliancy  even,  during  the 
six  weeks'  season  were  all  so  many  tonics  for  the 
malade  imaginaire. 

Such  acquaintance  as  I  had  with  the  Crown 
Princess  I  owed  to  the  late  King,  who  one  day 
asked  me  if  I  knew  his  sister.  When  I  said  no  he 
answered,  "Oh,  but  you  should;  I  must  arrange 
it,"  and  proposed  that  I  should  come  to  tea  the 
next  afternoon  at  his  villa,  then  the  Villa  Imperiale, 
when  the  Crown  Princess  would  be  there.  Arriv- 
ing, I  found  myself  the  only  guest.  I  was  presented 
to  the  Princess.  In  figure,  in  face  and  man- 
ner, she  was  very  like  her  mother,  the  late  Queen. 
The  figure  was  not  so  stout,  the  face  not  so  rubi- 
cund, the  manner  less  simple,  and  therefore  with 
less  authority ;  but  the  resemblance  in  each  particu- 
lar was  marked.  There  was  even  a  resemblance  in 
dress ;  or  it  might  be  truer  to  say  that  both  the  late 


The  Late  Emperor  Frederick         405 

Queen  and  her  eldest  daughter  showed  an  indiffer- 
ence to  the  art  of  personal  adornment.  Certain 
terms  have  become  stereotyped  in  various  worlds 
of  art.  Early  Victorian,  mid- Victorian,  or  merely 
Victorian — are  these  labels  now  used  by  way  of 
compliment  or  even  of  mere  description?  I  am 
afraid  they  are  one  and  all  terms  of  disparagement. 
But  it  was  said  truly  of  the  late  Queen  that  it  did 
not  matter  what  she  wore.  Robes  did  not  make 
the  Queen.  Whatever  she  wore  she  was  Queen, 
and  looked  the  Queen. 

The  Princess  had,  however,  a  much  greater 
vivacity  than  her  mother.  At  moments  it  became 
restlessness,  and  the  mind,  I  thought,  could  never 
be  in  repose.  There  was  no  beauty  but  there 
was  distinction;  and  in  this  again  she  resembled 
the  Queen.  After  her  marriage  and  down  to 
the  day  when  the  Emperor  Frederick's  death 
extinguished  her  ambitions,  the  Princess  had  lived 
in  a  dream-world  of  her  own  creation,  of  which  I 
will  say  more  in  a  moment.  Her  beliefs  were  so 
strong,  her  conviction  that  she  knew  what  was  best 
for  those  about  her  was  so  complete,  that  to  these 
beliefs  and  this  conviction  the  facts  had  to  adjust 
themselves  as  best  they  could. 

Even  for  the  purpose  of  this  audience  that  neces- 
sity became  evident.  I  had  been  presented,  of 
course,  as  an  American.  Almost  at  once  Her 
Royal  Highness  plunged  into  American  affairs.  She 
was  keenly  interested  in  educational  and  social 
problems,  and  explained  to  me  the  position  of 
women  in  the  United  States  with  reference  to  these 


4o6  Anglo-American  Memories 

problems.  It  appeared  she  had  a  correspondent  in 
Chicago,  as  I  understood,  a  lady  who  had  been 
presented  to  Her  Royal  Highness  in  Berlin,  and 
from  this  lady  had  derived  a  whole  budget  of  im- 
pressions. They  were  extremely  interesting,  if 
only  because  they  were,  to  me,  altogether  novel. 
But  as  I  was  not  asked  to  confirm  them,  I  of  course, 
said  nothing.  Now  and  then  a  question  was  put 
which  I  answered  as  well  as  I  could,  but  for  the 
most  part  the  Princess's  talk  flowed  on  smoothty 
and  swiftly  during  the  better  part  of  an  hour.  She 
talked  with  clearness,  with  energy,  with  an  almost 
apostolic  fervour,  the  voice  penetrating  rather  than 
melodious.  I  said  to  myself:  "All  this  may  be 
true  of  Chicago,  but  of  what  else  is  it  true?  "  The 
Princess  had  indeed  given  Chicago  as  the  source  of 
her  information,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  she 
generalized  from  the  Windy  City  to  the  rest  of  the 
United  States,  and  of  such  part  as  I  knew  I  did  not 
think  it  a  good  account. 

After  a  time  Chicago  was  dismissed  and  the  talk 
drifted  away  into  less  difficult  channels.  But 
the  position  was  always  much  the  same.  The 
Princess  talked  and  I  Hstened ;  the  most  interesting 
of  all  positions.  I  had  heard — everybody  had 
heard — a  great  deal  about  her  views  on  politics 
and  on  Anglo-German  relations  and  on  the  internal 
affairs  of  Germany.  On  some  of  these  matters  she 
touched  briefly;  on  all  she  threw  a  bright  light,  for 
no  matter  what  the  immediate  topic  of  her  dis- 
course, her  attitude  of  mind  toward  other  topics 
and  toward  higher  matters  of  State  became  visible. 


The  Late  Emperor  Frederick         407 

Never  for  a  moment  did  this  stream  of  talk  stop 
or  grow  sluggish.    Carlyle  summed  up  Macaulay, 
for  whom  he  had  no  great  respect,  in  the  phrase: 
"Flow  on,  thou  shining  river."     He  might,  in  a 
sardonic  mood,  have  done  the  same  for  this  Prin- 
cess.    After  a  time  I  found  myself  in  a  dilemma. 
An  hour  and  a  half  had  passed;  agreeably  and 
brilliantly,  but  it  had  passed,  and  I  had  been  for 
some  time  expecting  the  signal  which  would  indicate 
that  my  audience  was  at  an  end.     It  did  not  come. 
The  Princess  talked  on.     I  knew  Her  Royal  High- 
ness had  a  dinner  engagement,  and  I  knew  I  had, 
and  it  was  already  half -past  six,  and  Homburg  din- 
ners are  early.     Finally  I  said  I  was  afraid  I  had 
abused  Her  Royal  Highness 's  kindness,  and  might  I 
be  permitted  to  withdraw.      The  permission  was 
given,  the  Princess  held  out  her  hand,  and  I  went. 
It    was    an    illimiinating   interview.     It    threw 
light  on  events  to  come  as  well  as  on  those  of  the 
past.     Here  was  a  great  lady,  full  of  intelligence 
and  gifts,  yet  taking  views  of  great  public  questions 
which  she  held  almost  alone.     She  had  made  many 
enemies.     She  was  to  make  many  more.     In  Berlin 
I  had  heard  much.     Prince  Bismarck's  distrust  of 
the  Crown  Princess,  and  of  the  Crown  Prince  on 
her  account,  was  known.     It  was  shared  by  multi- 
tudes   of    Germans.     They    believed,    rightly    or 
wrongly,  that  she  wanted  to  Anglicize  Germany. 
Her  ascendancy  over  her  husband  was  believed 
to  be  complete,  and  because  it  was  complete  the  day 
of  the  Crown  Prince's  accession  to  the  throne  was 
expected  with  dread.     During  his  short  reign  of 


4o8  Anglo-American  Memories 

three  months — March  9th  to  June  15th,  iJ 
these  gloomy  forecasts  could  be  neither  confirmed 
nor  dispelled.  But  they  existed,  they  were  general, 
and  they  modified  the  grief  of  the  German  people 
at  the  melancholy  ending  of  what  had  promised  to 
be  a  great  career. 

I  suppose  it  must  be  said  that  the  Crown  Princess 
had  furnished  some  material  for  German  fore- 
bodings as  to  a  German  future  shaped  by  her  or 
by  her  influence.  She  talked  openly.  She  told 
all  comers  that  what  Germany  needed  was  parlia- 
mentary government  as  it  was  understood  and 
practised  in  England.  Against  that  the  German 
face  was  set  as  flint.  In  little  things,  as  in  great, 
she  made  no  secret  of  her  preference  for  what  was 
English  over  what  was  German.  When  the  rooms 
the  Crown  Prince  and  Crown  Princess  were  to 
occupy  in  the  Palace  of  Charlottenburg,  outside 
Berlin,  were  to  be  refurnished,  she  insisted  on 
bringing  upholsterers  from  London  to  do  the 
work.  Naturally  the  Berlin  people  did  not  like  that. 

Judgment  was  not  her  strong  point,  nor  was  tact. 
If  I  am  to  say  what  was  her  strong  point  I  sup- 
pose it  would  be  sincerity.  Her  gifts  of  mind  were 
dazzling  rather  than  sound.  Her  impulses  were 
not  always  under  control.  Her  animosities,  once 
roused,  never  slept,  as  Prince  Bismarck  well  knew. 
Her  will  was  so  vehement  as  sometimes  to  ob- 
scure her  perceptions.  But  hers  was  a  loyal  nature 
and  whatever  one  may  think  of  her  politics,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  regret  that  the  promise  of  a  great 
ambition  should  have  come  to  so  tragic  an  end. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 
I 

EDWARD   THE    SEVENTH   AS    PRINCE   OF   WALES — 
PERSONAL  INCIDENTS 

CVERYTHING,  or  almost  everything,  has  been 
*— '  said  about  King  Edward  the  Seventh,  every 
tribute  paid  him  from  every  quarter  of  the  world; 
and  the  mourning  of  his  people  is  the  best  tribute 
of  all.  I  should  like  to  add  an  estimate  from  a 
different  point  of  view  and  a  tribute,  but  I  suppose 
they  would  have  no  proper  place  in  these  papers, 
and  I  confine  myself  therefore  to  memories.  I 
will  go  back  to  the  period  when  he  was  Prince  of 
Wales,  and  to  the  place  where  he  put  off  most  of 
the  splendours  belonging  to  his  rank,  and  where 
most  of  the  man  himself  was  to  be  seen;  not  once 
nor  twice,  but  for  years  in  succession. 

Homburg  was  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  a  three 
weeks'  holiday.  I  do  not  think  he  took  the  medical 
side  of  it  very  seriously.  He  drank  the  waters  and 
walked,  as  the  doctors  bade  him,  but  with  respect 
to  diet  he  seemed  to  be  his  own  doctor  and  his 
prescriptions  were  not  severe.  But  then  nobody,  the 
local  physicians  excepted,  ever  did  take  Homburg 

409 


410 


Anglo-American  Memories 


very  seriously  as  a  cure.  What  the  Prince  liked 
was  the  freedom,  of  which  he  was  himself  the 
author.  On  occasions  of  ceremony  and  in  the 
general  course  of  his  life  at  home,  strict  etiquette 
was  enforced.  At  Homburg  the  Prince  used  his 
dispensing  power  and  put  aside  everything  but 
the  essentials.  He  lived  in  a  hired  villa.  He 
wore  lounging  suits  in  the  daytime — sometimes 
of  a  rather  flamboyant  colour — and  a  soft  grey  hat. 
In  the  evening  a  black  dining  jacket,  black  tie,  black 
waistcoat,  black  trousers,  and  a  soft  black  Hom- 
burg hat.  The  silk  hat  and  the  dress  coat  and 
white  tie  or  white  waistcoat  were  unknown.  Most 
of  the  officers  of  his  household  were  left  at  home, 
but  General  Sir  Stanley  Clark  was  always  with  him. 

His  way  of  life  was  as  informal  as  his  dress.  He 
was  there  to  amuse  himself  and  it  was  an  art  he 
understood  perfectly.  Homburg  is  a  village,  but 
it  had,  or  had  at  that  time,  many  resources.  The 
three  or  four  streets  of  which  the  place  consisted 
were  so  many  rendezvous  for  the  visitors.  The 
lawn-tennis  grounds  were  another.  The  walks  in 
the  woods  were  delightful.  There  were  drives 
over  the  hills  and  far  away,  in  the  purest  air  in 
Germany.  If  you  tired  of  the  little  watering-place 
or  its  guests,  there  was  Frankfort,  only  eight  miles 
distant,  with  resources  of  a  more  varied  kind.  But 
in  Homburg  itself  the  Kursaal,  though  there  had 
been  no  gambling  since  1869,  and  the  hotels,  were 
always  open  and  sometimes  lively. 

What  the  Prince  liked  was  society,  in  one  form 
or  another.     The  open-air  life  suited  him.     It  was 


Edward  the  Seventh  411 

sufficiently  formal  but  less  formal  than  indoors. 
He  liked  strolling  about  and  meeting  acquaintances 
or  friends.  When  you  had  once  seen  His  Royal 
Highness  leaning  against  the  railings  of  a  villa — 
the  villa  stood  each  in  its  own  ground — ^and  talking 
to  a  lady  leaning  out  of  the  first  floor  window,  and 
this  interview  lasting  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  you 
felt  that  the  conditions  of  life  and  the  relations 
of  royalty  to  other  ranks  in  life  had  taken  on  a 
quite  new  shape  in  Homburg. 

But  the  attitude  of  respect  was  maintained.  Cer- 
tain formalities  were  never  forgotten.  The  Prince 
was  always  addressed  as  "Sir"  or  as  "Your  Royal 
Highness."  But  these  observances  were  not  irk- 
some, nor  was  conversation  restricted  or  stiffened 
by  the  obligations  of  deference  or  by  the  accepted 
conventionalities  which,  after  all,  were  more  mat- 
ters of  form  than  of  substance.  And  in  his  most 
careless  moods  the  Prince  had  a  dignity  which  was 
the  more  impressive  for  being  apparently  uncon- 
scious. Nobody  ever  forgot  what  was  due  to  him ; 
or  ever  forgot  it  twice.  It  was  an  offence  he  did  not 
pardon;  or  pardoned  only  in  those  who  could  not 
remember  what  they  had  never  known.  A  for- 
eigner, an  American,  who  erred  in  pure  ignorance 
might  count  on  forgiveness. 

The  Prince  gave  many  luncheons  and  dinners, 
almost  always  at  Ritter's  or  at  the  Kursaal.  I 
should  think  there  was  never  a  day  when  he  did  not 
play  the  host.  The  dinners  at  the  Kursaal  were 
given  on  the  terrace,  always  crowded  with  other 
dinner-parties.     At    Ritter's    they    were    on    the 


412  Anglo-American  Memories 

piazza.  This  open-air  hospitality  was  the  plea- 
santer  because  it  was  so  seldom  possible  in  Eng- 
land. He  had  brought  the  art  of  entertaining  to 
perfection.  He  put  his  guests,  even  those  who 
stood  most  in  awe  of  royalty,  at  their  ease.  The 
costume  perhaps  helped.  When  a  company  of 
people  were  in  dining  jackets  and  the  men  wearing 
their  soft  black  hats,  even  at  table,  by  the  Prince's 
command,  etiquette  became  a  less  formidable  thing. 
The  Prince  talked  easily,  fluently,  and  well.  He 
might  ask  a  guest  whom  he  liked  to  sit  next  him,  ig- 
noring distinctions  of  rank,  but  during  the  dinner  he 
would  talk,  sooner  or  later,  to  everybody.  There 
might  be  a  dozen  guests, a  number  seldom  exceeded. 
I  will  give  you  one  example  of  the  dialogue  which 
went  on,  and  no  more.  The  late  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire, at  that  time  the  Marquis  of  Hartington, 
was  sitting  nearly  opposite  the  Prince,  but  at  some 
distance,  and  this  colloquy  took  place: 

"Hartington,  you  ought  not  to  be  drinking  all 
that   champagne." 

''No,  sir;  I  know  I  oughtn't." 

"Then  why  do  you  do  it?" 

"Well,  sir,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  I  had 
rather  be  ill  now  and  then  than  always  taking  care 
of  myself. " 

"Oh,  you  think  that  now,  but  when  the  gout 
comes  what  do  you  think  then?" 

"Sir,  if  you  will  ask  me  then  I  will  tell  you.  I 
do  not  anticipate." 

The  Prince  laughed  and  everybody  laughed. 
And  Lord  Hartington,  for  all  his  gout,  lived  to  be 


Edward  the  Seventh  413 

seventy -four,  one  of  the  truest  Englishmen  of  his 
time  or  of  any  time. 

Among  the  Americans  who  were  presented  to 
the  Prince  at  Homburg  were  Mr.  Depew  and  Mark 
Twain.  I  was  not  in  Homburg  when  Mr.  Depew 
first  came,  but  I  asked  one  of  the  Prince's  equerries 
to  arrange  the  presentation  for  Mr.  Depew,  and  I 
wrote  to  Lady  Cork  begging  her  to  do  what  she 
could  for  him.  So  the  formalities  were  duly  trans- 
acted. The  Prince  took  a  liking  to  the  American, 
asked  him  to  dine,  put  him  on  his  right  hand,  and 
listened  to  his  stories  with  delight.  He  told  me 
afterward  that  Depew  was  a  new  experience.  He 
asked  him  again  and  again,  and  the  next  year  also; 
I  believe  several  years,  or  as  long  as  Depew  went  to 
Homburg.     The  Prince  said: 

"Depew's  stories  were  not  all  good,  but  he  told 
the  bad  ones  so  well  that  they  were  better  than  the 
good." 

My  letter  to  Lady  Cork  had  a  fate  I  did  not  fore- 
see, though  I  ought  to  have  foreseen.  When  she 
told  the  Prince  that  I  had  written  her  about  Depew 
she  had  my  manuscript  in  her  hand.  "Is  that 
Smalley's  letter?  May  I  see  it?  "  asked  the  Prince ; 
took  it  and  read  the  whole.  It  happened  that  I 
was  staying  at  the  time  with  one  of  her  married 
daughters,  and  there  was  a  deal  good  of  family 
gossip  in  the  letter.  When  the  Prince  handed  it 
back  there  was  in  his  eyes  a  gleam  of  that  humour 
so  often  seen  there,  and  he  said: 

"Now  I  know  some  of  the  things  I  have  been 
wanting   to   know." 


414  Anglo-American  Memories 

And  Lady  Cork  answered: 

"Sir,  we  have  nothing  to  conceal  from  Your 
Royal  Highness." 

There  was,  of  course,  an  intimacy  which  put  the 
Prince  on  his  honour. 

Mark  Twain  was  staying  at  Nauheim,  some 
twelve  miles  away.  He  had  driven  into  Homburg 
and  was  wandering  about  the  place  when  he  was 
pointed  out  to  the  Prince,  and  was  presented. 
Mark  Twain  had  at  the  time  no  very  great  care 
about  his  personal  appearance,  and  was  very  shab- 
bily dressed.  He  was  the  "Tramp  Abroad."  At 
first  I  don't  think  he  much  interested  the  Prince. 
His  slowness  of  speech  and  his  unusual  intonations 
were  not  altogether  prepossessing.  However, 
when  he  had  taken  his  leave  the  Prince  seemed  to 
think  he  wished  to  see  him  again  and  said: 

"I  should  like  to  ask  him  to  dinner.  Do  you 
think  he  has  a  dining  jacket?" 

The  risk,  whatever  it  might  be,  was  taken,  the 
invitation  was  sent,  and  Mark  came  to  dinner, 
dining  jacket  and  all.  But  he  did  not  care  to  adapt 
himself  to  the  circumstances;  considering,  perhaps, 
that  the  circumstances  ought  to  adapt  themselves 
to  him.  The  meeting  was  not  a  great  success,  and, 
so  far  as  I  know,  was  never  repeated.  Socially 
speaking,  the  Mississippi  Pilot  was  an  intransigeant 
at  times,  and  this  was  one  of  the  times.  He  could 
not,  I  suppose,  overcome  his  drawling  manner  of 
speech  nor  reduce  his  interminable  stories  to  dinner- 
table  limits.  He  had  the  air  of  usurping  more  than 
his  share  of  the  conversation  and  of  the  time,  which 


Edward  the  Seventh  4^5 

he  certainly  did  not  mean  to.  Intentions,  un- 
luckily, count  for  little.  Men  are  judged  by  what 
they  do,  and  the  general  impression  was  not  as 
favourable  to  Mark  on  this  occasion  as  it  would 
have  been  if  he  had  been  better  known.  Among 
all  Princes  and  Potentates  there  was  never  one 
more  willing  to  make  allowances  or  less  exacting 
in  respect  to  trivial  matters  than  Mark's  host. 
But,  after  all,  he  was  Prince  of  Wales  and  the 
future  King  of  England,  and  if  you  were  not 
prepared  to  recognize  that,  it  was  open  to  you  to 
stay  away. 

Mark  Twain,  at  any  rate,  was  not  one  of  the 
Americans  who  followed  the  Prince  to  Homburg. 
He  met  the  Prince  almost  by  accident,  and  returned 
from  Nauheim  by  the  Prince's  invitation  for  this 
not  very  successful  dinner.  His  Republicanism 
was  perhaps  of  a  rebellious  kind,  and  possibly, 
though  without  desiring  to,  he  gave  the  Prince  to 
understand  as  much.  Some  of  Mark's  compatriots 
went  far  in  the  opposite  direction,  especially  one 
or  two  American  women.  There  was  a  handsome 
American  girl  who  had  found  means  to  be  presented 
to  the  Prince;  no  difficult  matter  for  a  pretty 
woman  at  any  time.  Then  she  sent  him  a  photo- 
graph of  himself  and  begged  him  to  sign  it.  As  I 
was  passing  the  Prince  one  afternoon  in  the  street 
he  stopped  me  and  pulled  a  parcel  out  of  his  pocket, 
saying: 

"This  is  a  photograph  Miss  X.  sent  me  to  sign, 
and  I  have  signed  it,  and  I  was  just  going  to  leave 
it  for  her  at  the  hotel.     But  I  am  afraid  to.     I 


41 6  Anglo-American  Memories 

don't  know  what  she  may  not  ask  me  next.     Would 
you  mind  leaving  it  for  me?" 

The  Prince  did  not  see,  but  as  I  went  in  I  saw,  on 
the  porch,  the  girl  herself.  She  must  have  looked 
on  at  what  happened  and  I  am  not  at  all  sure  she  did 
not  hear  what  the  Prince  said.  None  the  less,  she 
accepted  the  signed  photograph  joyfully,  and  it 
always  had  a  place  of  honour  in  New  York. 
"Was  n't  it  kind  of  His  Royal  Highness  to  give  it 
to  me?"  queried  this  beautiful  being,  not  knowing 
that  the  true  story  had  been  told  me.  When  I 
made  my  report  to  the  Prince  I  remarked  casually 
that  Miss  X.  had  been  sitting  on  the  veranda  and 
might  have  seen  what  took  place.  "I  hope  she 
heard  also,"  exclaimed  the  Prince.  But  he  did 
not  quite  mean  that.  At  any  rate,  he  relented 
afterward  and  was  seen  to  be  talking  to  the  girl, 
whose  eyes  he  could  not  but  admire. 


II 


PRINCE    OF    WALES    AND    KING    OF    ENGLAND — ^THE 
PERSONAL  SIDE 


I  need  not  say  much  about  the  public  life  of  the 
late  King  nor  about  the  part  he  played  in  the 
Empire  of  the  world.  But  there  are  certain  pas- 
sages in  his  private  life  and  in  his  relations  with  the 
late  Queen  which  had  an  effect  on  his  career,  and 
may  be  related  in  whole  or  in  part. 

The  greatness  of  this  reign  is  the  more  remarkable 
because  experience  of  public  affairs  came  to  the 


Edward  the  Seventh  417 

King  late  in  life.  He  was  in  his  sixtieth  year  when 
he  came  to  the  Throne,  and  during  the  forty  years 
when  he  might  have  been  acquiring  invaluable 
experience  he  had  been  sedulously  excluded  by  the 
late  Queen  from  all  share  in  the  business  of  State. 
So  much  is  known,  and  so  much  is  sometimes  stated 
in  the  English  Press,  though  stated  with  caution. 
It  is  the  truth,  but  it  is  not  all  the  truth.  I  believe 
it  to  be  also  true,  that  after  the  death  of  the  Prince 
Consort,  in  1861,  the  Queen  desired  the  Prince 
of  Wales  to  take  up  some  portion  of  the  duties  of 
his  father,  and  offered  him  a  place  as  her  private 
secretary.  The  Prince,  for  whatever  reason, 
declined  it. 

He  was  not  much  over  twenty  years  of  age,  and 
never  in  any  man,  perhaps,  was  the  desire  of  lajoie 
de  vivre  stronger.  Some  years  later  a  truer  sense 
of  his  position  and  duties  and  opportunities  came 
to  him.  He  offered  to  accept,  and  besought  the 
Queen's  permission  to  accept,  the  post  she  had  first 
offered  him.  Her  Majesty  made  answer  that  the 
post  had  been  filled,  and  never  from  that  time  on- 
ward did  she  open  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  the  door 
she  then  closed.  She  left  him  to  amuse  himself, 
to  choose  his  own  associates  and  his  own  occu- 
pations. She  herself  spent  six  hours  a  day — never 
less,  and  often  much  more — in  reading  dispatches 
and  State  papers  of  all  kinds.  The  Prince  saw 
none  of  them,  was  present  at  no  interviews  with 
Ministers,  knew  nothing  at  first  hand  of  the  con- 
duct of  affairs. 

Yet  the  Prince  had,  in  the  face  of  these  dis- 
27 


4i8  Anglo-American  Memories 

couragements,  an  appetite  for  public  business. 
He  was  well  informed  about  it,  but  only  as  an  out- 
sider is  well  informed.  Naturally,  the  opinion  had 
grown  up  that  not  much  was  to  be  expected  of  the 
Prince  as  King.  The  death  of  the  late  Queen  was 
thought  to  close  an  era.  It  had  not  occurred  to 
any  one,  except  perhaps  to  his  nearest  friends,  to 
think  of  the  new  King  as  well  equipped  for  his 
Kingship.  True,  Lord  Salisbury,  than  whom 
there  could  be  no  higher  authority,  speaking  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  had  said  of  the  new  King  upon  his 
accession  that  he  had  "a  profound  knowledge  of 
the  working  of  our  constitution  and  conduct  of  our 
affairs."  Lord  vSalisbury  had  had  his  exceptional 
means  of  knowing,  and  he  expressed  his  own  opinion, 
a  true  opinion,  but  not  a  general  opinion.  I  sup- 
pose Lord  Rosebery,  long  intimate  with  the  Prince, 
might  have  said  as  much.  But  to  most  men  such 
expressions  came  as  a  surprise. 

I  met  Sir  Francis  Jeune  at  dinner  on  the  evening 
after  the  first  Privy  Council  held  by  the  King, 
which  Sir  Francis  had  gone  down  to  Osborne  to 
attend.     He  began  at  once  to  describe  the  scene: 

"The  King  astonished  us  all.  We  had  all  known 
him  as  Prince  of  Wales.  It  became  clear  we  had 
yet  to  know  him  as  King.  His  air  of  authority  sat 
on  him  as  if  he  had  worn  it  always.  He  spoke  with 
weight,  as  a  King  should  speak.  It  was  plain  he 
had  come  to  the  Throne  to  rule." 

Ask  the  Ministers  and  other  great  personages 
who  stood  to  him  in  official  relations.  Mr.  Asquith 
has  answered  for  them  all: 


Edward  the  Seventh  419 

"I  speak  from  a  privileged  and  close  experience 
when  I  say  that,  wherever  he  was  or  whatever  may 
have  been  his  apparent  preoccupations,  in  the  trans- 
action of  the  business  of  the  State  there  were  never 
any  arrears,  there  was  never  any  trace  of  confusion, 
there  was  never  any  moment  of  avoidable  delay. " 

In  the  opinion  of  the  King  their  time  and  his 
belonged  to  the  public,  and  neither  was  to  be 
wasted. 

The  whole  truth  about  the  late  King's  mission 
to  Paris  has,  I  think,  never  been  told.  It  was 
not  expedient  that  it  should  be  told  at  the  time, 
nor  was  it  generally  known.  But  until  it  is  known 
full  justice  cannot  be  done  to  the  King's  courage 
and  wisdom,  or  to  his  direct  personal  influence  on 
the  course  of  great  affairs.  For  it  was  the  man 
himself,  the  King  himself,  who  won  this  great 
victory;  not  by  diplomacy,  not  by  statecraft,  but 
because  he  was  the  man  he  was.  I  tell  the  story 
briefly,  but  the  outlines  will  be  enough. 

When  th&  King  went  to  Paris  to  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  a  new  friendship  between  France  and 
England  the  feeling  of  the  French  against  the 
English  ran  high.  They  had  not  forgotten  nor 
forgiven  the  sympathies  of  England  with  Germany 
in  .1870.  They  had  not  forgotten  their  own  retreat 
from  Egypt  in  1882,  and  they  scored  up  their  own 
mistake  against  England.  They  had  not  forgotten 
Fashoda.  The  King  was  warned  not  to  go.  The 
French  Government  warned  him.  They  could  pro- 
tect him,  they  said,  against  violence  but  not  against 
insult.     His  own  Government  thought  his  visit, 


420  Anglo-American  Memories 

in  the  circumstances,  ill-advised.  Against  all 
this  he  set  his  own  conviction  that  the  moment 
had  come  to  make  an  effort  for  a  better  under- 
standing between  the  two  peoples.  Danger  did 
not  deter  him.  For  personal  danger  he  cared 
nothing,  and  against  the  danger  that  any  discourt- 
esy to  himself  might  embitter  the  two  nations  he 
set  the  hope  of  success.  Like  the  statesman  he  was, 
he  calculated  forces  and  calculated  wisely.  He 
knew  that  the  French,  and  especially  the  Parisians, 
had  always  liked  him  personally  and  he  resolved 
to  risk  it. 

Neither  his  courage  nor  his  sagacity  was  at  fault. 
At  first  things  went  badly.  When  he  reached  the 
railway  station  he  was  received  in  silence.  When 
he  drove  from  the  station  to  the  Embassy  there  was 
not  a  cheer.  As  he  went  about  Paris  the  next  day 
the  attitude  of  the  Parisians  was  still  sullen,  if  not 
hostile.  But  the  presence  and  personaHty  of  the 
King  began  after  a  time  to  soften  hardness.  Be- 
fore nightfall  a  cheer  or  two  had  been  heard  in  the 
streets,  and  next  day  all  Paris  was  once  more  all 
smiles  and  applause.  The  King  had  conquered. 
He  had  won  over  the  people.  He  had  convinced 
Ministers.  He  had  conciliated  public  opinion. 
He  had  laid  a  gentle  hand  upon  old  and  still  open 
wounds.  He  had  shown  himself  for  the  first  time 
a  great  instrument  and  messenger  of  peace,  and 
had  begun  the  work  to  which  all  the  rest  of  his 
life  was  to  be  devoted. 

Long  before  that  ever-memorable  visit,  in  France 
as  in  England,  the  Prince  knew  all  sorts  of  people. 


Edward  the  Seventh  421 

and  was  popular  with  all,  and  did  not  mind  being 
of  service  now  and  then  to  the  people  whom  he 
did  not  know  at  all.  Dining  one  night  with  the 
Due  de  la  Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia  in  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain,  he  was  asked  by  his  host  to  go  with 
him  to  the  opening  reception  at  the  house  of  a 
banker  in  the  Boulevard  Haussmann.  The  banker 
had  made  a  great  fortune  and  had  great  social 
ambitions.  The  Prince  knew  very  well  why  he 
was  asked,  but  good-naturedly  went.  His  going 
was  chronicled  and  blazoned  next  day  in  every 
one  of  the  seventy  daily  papers  of  Paris;  and  the 
banker's  ambition  was  satisfied. 

That  was  one  incident.  Another  was  his  presence 
of  course  in  the  Prince  of  Wales  period,  at  a  supper 
given  by  the  Figaro  in  its  new  offices.  Celebrities 
of  all  sorts  were  there,  and  the  Prince  had  to  sit 
still  while  a  too  well-known  actress  from  the  Bouffes 
proposed  the  Queen's  health.  He  raised  his  glass 
drank  the  toast,  and  said  nothing.  It  was  no 
fault  of  his.  This  also  found  its  way  into  the 
French  papers ;  not  into  the  English.  He  had  many 
friendships  among  artists,  men  of  letters,  soldiers, 
statesmen.  Betv/een  the  Prince  and  the  late  Mar- 
quis de  Galliffet,  the  Marshal  Ney  of  this  last  gen- 
eration, there  was  a  close  tie;  two  chivalrous  souls 
who  understood  each  other  from  the  beginning. 
He  was  often  to  be  seen  in  studios — M.  Detaille's, 
M.  Rodin's,  and  many  others.  He  knew  the 
theatres  in  Paris  as  well  as  he  knew  the  theatres 
in  London ;  perhaps  better.  He  went  to  the  theatre 
primarily,  I  think,  to  be  amused,  and  the  theatres 


422  Anglo-American  Memories 

in  Paris  are  more  amusing  than  the  theatres  in 
London.  The  most  patriotic  Englishman  may  be 
content  to  admit  that. 

If  the  Prince  had  any  politics  abroad  they  were 
kept  for  his  private  use.  To  the  French  Republic, 
as  Republic,  and  to  successive  Presidents  of  the 
Republic,  he  showed  nothing  but  good-will.  To 
French  statesmen  the  same;  to  Gambetta,  to 
Waldeck-Rousseau,  and  to  M.  Clemenceau,  whose 
originalities  and  courage  interested  him  long  before 
that  energetic  individuality  had  become  Prime 
Minister.  They  all  liked  the  Prince,  but  not  one 
of  them  ever  guessed  that  from  him  when  King 
would  spring  the  new  impulse  of  friendship  which 
was  to  make  France  and  England  in  all  but  name 
allies,  and  so  impose  peace  upon  the  restless  ambi- 
tions of  another  great  sovereign.  Gambetta,  it 
is  true,  foretold  a  splendid  future  for  the  Prince, 
without  explaining  how  it  was  to  be  splendid. 

I  think  if  you  moved  about  among  Englishmen 
one  thing  would  impress  you  more  than  all  others 
in  their  tributes  to  their  late  King.  Not  their  full 
testimony  to  his  greatness  as  King.  Not  their 
admiration  of  his  capacities.  Not  their  pride  in 
him  as  a  Ruler.  Not  their  sense  of  the  incal- 
culable services  he  has  rendered.  Not  their 
gratitude  for  these  services,  deep  as  that  is.  Not 
the  Imperial  spirit  and  the  new  value  they  set  upon 
the  Unity  of  the  Empire.  Not  his  virtues  of  any 
kind,  though  to  all  of  them  they  bear  witness. 

The  one  thing  which  would  impress  you  beyond 
all  this  is  the  affection  they  bore  to  him  in  his  life- 


Edward  the  Seventh  423 

time  and  now  bear  to  his  memory.  He  had  known 
how  to  establish  new  relations  between  King  and 
People,  relations  which  had  a  tenderness  and  a 
beauty  unknown  before.  They  belonged  to  an  earlier 
period  of  history.  They  were  not  quite  patriarchal, 
as  in  really  ancient  days,  but  were  like  the  relations 
which  exist  in  an  old  family:  ties  of  blood  and  of 
long  descent.  They  did  not  exist  in  the  last  reign. 
There  was  immense  respect  for  Queen  Victoria; 
not  much  sentiment.  She  had  withdrawn  herself 
too  much  from  general  intercourse,  and  even  from 
the  ceremonial  part  of  her  royal  duties.  But  this 
King,  her  son,  went  among  the  people,  lived  among 
them,  lived  for  them,  gave  them  his  constant 
thought,  won  their  hearts.  His  loss  is  to  them  a 
personal  loss.  They  mourn  for  him  as  for  a  King, 
and  they  mourn  for  him  as  for  a  Friend  who  is  gone. 
That  seems  to  me  the  finest  tribute  of  all. 


Ill 


AS   KING SOME   PERSONAL   AND   SOCIAL   INCIDENTS 

AND   IMPRESSIONS 

I  met  at  luncheon  one  of  the  King's  friends, 
in  some  ways  one  among  the  most  intimate  of 
the  innumerable  friends  he  had ;  a  man,  however, 
not  readily  yielding  to  emotion  nor  likely  to  take 
what  is  called  the  sentimental  view.  We  began 
to  talk  of  the  King.  Suddenly  he  broke  off: 
"I  cannot  say  much.  I  loved  him." 
I  don't  know  that  I  can  tell  you  anything  more 


424  Anglo-American  Memories 

characteristic  or  illuminating  than  that.  It  is  the 
kind  of  tribute  the  King  himself  would  have  liked. 
And  there  are  millions  of  Englishmen  to-day  whose 
hearts  are  full  of  the  same  feeling. 

The  King — the  late  King — was  a  great  master 
of  kingly  graces.  He  knew,  I  suppose,  more  men 
and  women  than  any  man  of  his  time.  He  knew 
the  exact  degree  of  consideration  to  which  each  one 
of  them  was  entitled,  and  exactly  how  to  express 
it.  If  you  desire  to  form  to  yourself  a  conception 
of  the  interval  which  divides  a  king,  with  the 
inherited  traditions  of  a  thousand  years,  from  the 
elected  Chief  Magistrate  of  yesterday,  you  might 
do  worse  than  watch  the  ceremonial  customs  of 
personal  intercourse.  We  know  what  the  indis- 
criminate handshakings  by  the  President  are.  We 
know  that  the  custom,  aided  by  the  incredible 
stupidity  of  the  police  about  him,  cost  one  of  them 
his  life.  We  read  the  other  day  that  a  President, 
after  enduring  this  exaction  for  a  time,  had  to  stop 
it.  His  right  hand  was  all  but  paralysed.  We 
have  all  listened  to  the  Presidential,  "I  am  very 
glad  to  see  you,"  repeated  to  aU  comers.  It  may 
be  unavoidable  but  it  all  detracts  something  from 
the  dignity  of  the  office  and  the  man. 

This  King  who  is  gone  gave  his  hand  more  often 
than  any  other;  but  at  his  own  choice  and  discretion. 
It  was  thought  abroad  he  went  great  lengths,  and 
some  of  the  Continental  sovereigns  and  the  courtiers 
about  them  criticized  him.  They  also  after  a  time 
imitated  him,  and  sometimes  at  once.  The  present 
German  Emperor  was  one  of  those  who  took  the 


Edward  the  Seventh  425 

hint  from  his  uncle  as  soon  as  it  was  given.  I 
told  long  ago  how  the  Emperor  and  the  then  Prince 
of  Wales  in  1889  came  on  board  the  White  Star 
steamship  Teutonic  lying  at  Spithead,  with  a  great 
company  of  naval  guests,  there  to  witness  the  great 
naval  review  which  never  took  place.  The  First 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  Lord 
Charles  Beresford,  Mr.  Ismay,  Mr.  Depew,  and 
many  other  persons  of  distinction  were  grouped 
on  the  main  deck.  The  Emperor  came  up  the  steps 
first,  and  by  way  of  acknowledging  their  saluta- 
tions raised  his  white  cap.  The  Prince  of  Wales 
shook  hands  with  all  those  I  have  named  and  with 
some  others,  the  Emperor  looking  on  astonished. 
Then  came  a  prolonged  inspection  of  the  Teutonic, 
the  finest  passenger  ship  then  afloat,  the  pioneer  of 
all  modern  comfort  and  splendour  on  the  Atlantic, 
Mr.  Ismay's  creation.  There  had  been  much  talk 
in  which  Emperor  and  Prince  had  both  taken  part, 
and  by  the  time  they  were  ready  to  leave,  the  great 
German  sovereign  had  learned  his  lesson.  He 
shook  hands  cordially  with  Mr.  Ismay,  in  whom  he 
had  recognized  a  kindred  spirit  of  greatness,  other 
than  his  own  but  not  less  genuine,  and  with  others. 
The  faces  of  his  staff  were  the  faces  of  men  amazed, 
perplexed,  almost  incredulous. 

At  drawing-rooms  and  Courts  and  levees;  in 
private  houses  where  he  w^as  a  guest,  whether  in 
town  or  country,  on  the  turf,  in  the  theatre,  at  a 
public  ceremonial,  at  a  Marlborough  House  or 
Windsor  garden-party,  the  same  habit  prevailed. 
Prince  of  Wales  or  King  of  England,  he  met  his 


426  Anglo-American  Memories 

friends  as  a  friend,  and  for  acquaintances  with  any 
title  to  recognition  he  had  a  pleasant  welcome. 
It  added  immensely  to  his  popularity  among  those 
who  knew  him,  and  among  the  millions  who  never 
saw  him,  but  heard.  They  thought  of  him  as  a 
man  among  men,  which  he  was  in  every  sense,  and 
as  one  who  thought  manhood  an  honourable  thing. 
Ask,  moreover,  any  of  the  equerries  or  others  of  his 
household.  They  will  all  tell  you  he  was  consider- 
ate. He  expected  each  officer  to  do  his  duty,  and 
it  was  done.  It  is  often  an  irksome  duty;  but  he 
made  it  needlessly  so. 

The  human  side  of  him  was  never  long  hidden. 
It  is  a  remark  one  is  tempted  to  repeat  again  and 
again.  It  came  out  in  the  services  he  was  for  ever 
doing;  public  in  their  nature,  but  from  a  private 
impulse.  He  met  to  the  full  the  expectation  of  the 
public,  and  discharged  to  the  full  the  obligation  of 
the  Crown  in  respect  of  all  charities  and  ceremoni- 
als ;  and  always  with  a  kindly  grace  which  made  his 
presence  and  his  gifts  doubly  welcome. 

With  people  whom  he  knew  well  and  liked  he 
was  glad  to  lay  aside  etiquette.  I  could  give  you, 
but  must  not,  the  names  of  friends  to  whom  he 
would  often  send  word  in  the  afternoon  that  he  was 
coming  to  dine  that  evening  and  to  play  bridge  af- 
ter. Even  a  king,  and  a  great  king,  must  sometimes 
relax.  He  cannot  always  appear  in  armour.  His 
hostess  would  meet  him  at  the  door  with  a  ciu*tsey, 
and  then  welcome  him  as  a  friend ;  and  the  talk  all 
through  dinner  was  intimate  and  free.  Those 
were  delightful  hours.     So  were  the  days  in  country 


Edward  the  Seventh  427 

houses  where  the  King  was  a  guest.  Always,  no 
doubt,  a  certain  hush  in  the  atmosphere,  a  certain 
constraint  if  the  party  was  large,  but  so  far  as  the 
King  was  concerned,  if  people  were  not  at  their 
ease  it  was  their  own  fault.  Everybody  knew 
where  the  line  was  drawn.  Nobody  in  his  senses 
over-passed  it.  One  flagrant  instance  there  was, 
not  in  the  country,  but  at  a  house  in  London,  at 
supper' — a  large  party.  The  hour  grew  late  and 
the  Prince  still  sat  at  his  table.  A  guest  who  had 
found  the  champagne  to  his  liking  staggered  across 
the  room,  steadied  himself  by  a  chair  and  stuttered 
out: 

"I  don't  know  whether  Your  Royal  Highness 
knows  how  late  it  is,  but  it's  past  two  o'clock, 
and  I  am  going  home.     Good-night,  sir!" 

The  Prince  sat  still  and  answered  not.  He  saw 
the  man's  condition.  Nobody  knew  better  the 
rule  that  such  a  company  did  not  break  up  till  the 
Prince  gave  the  signal.  He  was  a  man  with  a  great 
social  position,  and  not  social  only.  When  he  had 
departed  the  Prince  finished  his  interrupted  sen- 
tence and  the  talk  went  on  as  before.  Not  an 
allusion  to  the  offence  or  the  offender. 

His  sense  of  social  responsibility  showed  itself 
in  an  unexpected  form  during  the  Boer  War.  There 
grew  up  among  the  aristocracy  a  passionate  patriot- 
ism which  sent  heads  of  great  families  and  elder 
and  younger  sons  into  the  field.  The  King  thought 
this  feeling  threatened  to  have  grave  consequences. 
He  approved  it,  of  course,  and  encouraged  it,  but 
he  thought  limits  ought  to  be  set  to  a  fervour  which 


428  Anglo-American  Memories 

seemed  not  unlikely  to  extinguish  an  important 
part  of  the  nobility.  He  sent  for  a  number  of  men 
in  great  position  who  had  resolved  to  go  and  advised 
them  to  wait,  saying,  with  his  usual  good  sense: 

"Enough  men  of  your  class  have  gone  already 
to  show  your  devotion ;  more  than  are  really  needed 
for  the  purposes  of  war.  Wait  a  little.  If  matters 
go  badly  it  will  be  time  enough  then  for  you  to 
depart." 

One  secret  of  the  extraordinary  social  power  of 
both  Prince  and  King  lay  in  his  knowledge  of  social 
matters.  Nobody  was  so  well  informed.  He  had 
about  him  numbers  of  men,  and  of  women,  who 
took  pains  to  send  him,  or  bring  him,  the  earliest 
account  of  any  social  incident  or  gossip.  It  was 
known  that  he  had  these  sources  of  information,  and 
that  whatever  was  known  to  any  one  was  known 
to  him.  Such  knowledge  as  that  was  a  weapon. 
It  was  not  one  of  which  he  made  use,  or  needed  to 
use.     The  fact  that  he  had  it  was  enough. 

He  liked  news  also,  and  tdok  pains  to  get  it.  If 
there  were  a  political  or  Ministerial  crisis,  you 
might  be  sure  that  Marlborough  House  knew  all 
about  it.  He  had  a  certain  number  of  men  in  his 
suite  or  of  his  acquaintance  from  whom  he  expected, 
and  generally  got,  early  intelligence.  There  was 
a  sort  of  competition  in  supplying  him.  If  you 
were  first  you  were  thanked.  If  you  had  been 
anticipated,  he  remarked  dryly  and  with  a  good- 
humoured  twinkle  in  his  very  expressive  eyes: 
"Oh,  yes,  very  interesting  but  I  heard  it  an  hour 
ago." 


Edward  the  Seventh  429 

When  I  was  leaving  England  in  1 895  for  America 
the  Prince  gave  me  his  cipher  address  and  asked  me 
to  cable  him  as  often  as  there  was  news  I  thought 
might  interest  him.  That  may  serve  to  show  us 
Americans  how  much  he  cared  for  American  mat- 
ters, and  how  completely  he  returned  the  good-will 
we  have  always  borne  him  since  his  visit  to  the 
United  States  in  i860.  I  told  the  Prince  my  first 
duty  was  to  The  Times,  since  I  was  going  home  as 
their  correspondent.  Subject  to  that,  I  should  be 
glad  to  send  him  what  I  could.  The  difference  of 
time  was  such  that  he  might  well  enough  get  a  dis- 
patch before  midnight  at  Marlborough  House, 
which  could  not  appear  in  print  till  next  morning. 
"But  you  know  that 's  just  what  I  should  like," 
said  the  Prince. 

From  beginning  to  end  the  late  King  has  lived 
his  life,  ever  a  full  life,  possibly  not  always  a  wise 
life.  Who  can  be  wise  always?  Who  likes  a  man 
who  is  always  wise?  His  faults  in  youth  were  of  a 
kind  which  were  recognized  as  belonging  to  men. 
The  blood  which  flowed  in  his  veins  came  down  to 
him  through  centuries  of  ancestors  to  whom  the  re- 
strictions and  pudencies,  often  hypocritical,  of  mod- 
ern days  were  unknown.  And  if  we  look  at  the 
result,  at  the  crown  of  all,  at  the  matured  character 
which  made  him  one  of  the  greatest  servants  of  the 
State,  of  any  State,  ever  known  in  history,  need 
there  be  any  criticism  or  any  regret?  Not  perhaps 
the  white  flower  of  a  blameless  life,  but  was  there 
ever  one?  But  a  great  human  life,  compact  of 
good  and    ill,  and  so  flowering  into   the   great- 


430  Anglo-American  Memories 

ness  of  a  great  King.  Perhaps  the  best  summary- 
is  Pascal's: 

"Qu'une  vie  est  heureuse  quand  elle  commence  par 
V amour  et  qu'elle  finit  par  l' ambition/' 

For  the  King's  ambition  was  never  for  himself; 
he  had  no  need  to  wish  to  be  other  than  he  was. 
It  was  an  ambition  for  the  good  of  his  people. 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lady,  influence  of,  in 
Canada — her  zeal  for  Irish 
Home  Rule,  279-280 

Aberdeen,  Lord,  Governor-Gene- 
ral of  Canada,  279;  succeeded 
by  Lord  Minto,  281 

Abolitionists,  the,  counsels  of, 
governed  by  Phillips,  104;  de- 
sire to  adopt  legal  measures, 
108;  meetings  held  by,  33-35, 
85;  unprotected  by  police 
against  the  rioters,  99,  100 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Amer- 
ican minister  in  England,  49; 
his  services  to  his  country,  194- 
5;  introduction  to,  196 

Adams,  John,  rank  of,  as  a  diplo- 
matist, 194 

Agassiz,  Professor,  influence  of, 
on  thought  in  Massachusetts, 
II,  212 

Airlie,  Earl  of,  remarkable  legend 
in  family  of,  396-401 

Alaskan  Boundary  Question, 
260-276 

Alcott,  Mr.,  attempt  of,  to  enter 
Boston  Court  House  during  the 
riot,  35 

Allibone,  Mr.,  on  writings  of 
R.  W.  Emerson,  67 

Allingham,  Mr.,  poem  of.  The 
Talisman,  recited  by  Emerson. 
70 

Alverstone,  Lord,  British  fairness 
of — settles  dangerous  contro- 
versy— speech  on  arbitration, 
270-271;  distinguished  career 
of,  271-272;  Canadian  attacks 
upon,  272-273 

Ampthill,  Lord,  diplomatic  feat 
performed   by,    379 

Andrew,  Governor,  i,  4,  121; 
declines  to  act  against  the 
rioters,  101-102;  compared  with 


Gambetta,  106;  Phillips's  opin- 
ion of,  90 

Anti-Slavery  Society,  riot  at  meet- 
ing of,  99-103 

Arnim,  Count  von,  Bismarck's 
distrust    of,     387;     anecdotes, 

V- 387-388 

Arnold,  Matthew,  discourses  of, 
on  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  51, 
67-69 ;  death  of,  64 

Asquith,  Mr.,  his  eulogy  of  King 
Edward,  419;  supported  by 
the  Bishops  in  his  temperance 
legislation,  391 

Astor,  Mr.,  322 


B 


Balfour,  Mr.,  Leader  of  House  of 
Commons,  333 

Banks,  Mr.,  elected  Speaker  in 
Congress,  84 

Barlow,  Sir  Thomas,  consulta- 
tion with,  353-355;  honours 
conferred  upon,  355-357;  duties 
of  President  of  Royal  College 
of  Physicians,  357-358;  elec- 
tioneering story,  359 

Barnes,  Mr.  Justice  Gorell,  369 

Barrymore,  Lord,  See  Smith- 
Barry 

Bachelder,  James,  killed  during 
attack  on  Boston  Court  House, 
35 >  38;  Judge  Loring  charged 
with  responsibility  for  death  of, 

39 

Bath     and     Wells,     Bishop    of, 

emoluments  of,  390 
Bathurst,   Countess,    control  of, 

over  Morning  Post,  340 
Bedford,  Duke  of,  379-382 
Beit,  Mr.,  290 
Benjamin,    Mr.,   position    of,  at 

English  Bar,  366-368 
Bennett,  James  Gordon,  ideas  of, 


431 


432 


Index 


Bennett — Continued 

on  methods  of  news  organiza- 
tion, 223 

Beresford,  Lord  Charles,  154; 
meets  Prince  of  Wales  and 
Emperor  William  on  board 
Teutonic,  424-425 

Bernhardt,  Mme.  Sarah,  friend- 
ship of  Lord  Glenesk  with,  342 

Bismarck,  Prince,  conflict  with 
Count  von  Arnim,  387-388;  re- 
lations with  Lord  R.  Churchill, 
324-325,  327;  epigram  of,  117; 
before  Franco-German  War, 
230;  distrust  of  Empress  Fred- 
erick, 407-408;  mastery  of 
French  language,  381-382;  con- 
flict with  King  of  Prussia, 
1 87-191;  my  first  meeting  with, 
121-123;  message  to  J.  Lothrop 
Motley,  202;  confidence  in 
Lord  Odo  Russell,  381;  after 
Sadowa,  170-174;  Sumner's  in- 
terest in,  125;  a  talk  with, 
178-193 

Bismarck,  Prmcess,  183-185,  186, 

193 

Blaine,  Mr.,  84 

Borthwick,  Miss  Lilias.  See 
Bathurst,  Countess 

Borthwick,  OHver,  successfully 
conducts  Morning  Post,  340- 
341;  flattering  reception  of,  by 
President  Roosevelt,  343-344; 
early  death  of,  341 

Bright,  John,  conversation  with, 
125;  thunders  against  the  Bish- 
ops, 390;  speaks  in  honour  of 
Garrison,  114;  resentment  of 
Sumner's     "Claims"     Speech, 

Broadbent,  Sir  WiUiam,  story  of 
his  attendance  upon  IMr.  Hay, 
360-362;  his  awe  of  rank,  362; 

"Broadcloth  mob,"  the,  85,  92, 

95 

Brodrick,  George,  at  Lord  Arthur 
Russell's  breakfasts,  382;  sobri- 
quet of — writes  leaders  for 
The  Times,  382-383;  becomes 
Warden  of  Merton,  383 

Bromley,  Isaac,  writes  for  New 
York  Tribune,  16 

Brooks,  Preston,  Senator  Sumner 
assaiilted  by,  84 


Brown,  John,  of  Osawatomie, 
effect  on  public  feeling  of 
imprisonment  and  hanging  of, 
14,  85-87,  98 

Browning,  Robert,  119 

Buchanan,  President,  85 

Biicher,  Herr  Lothar,  1 79 

Buckle,  Mr.,  327 

Burke,  Mr.,  255 

Burns,  Anthony,  arrest  and  sur- 
render of,  29,  36,  42;  effect  of 
surrender  of,  on  popular  feeling, 
36,  37,  84;  Theodore  Parker's 
sermon  on  surrender  of,  38 

Burnside,  General,  155 

Butler,  General  Benjamin,  anec- 
dotes of,  27-28;  his  announce- 
ment as  to  negroes  being 
"contraband  of  war,"  132-133; 
reputation  of,  at  American  Bar, 
27-28;  rancour  of,  against  Dana, 
41-42,  48 


C 


Campbell,  Lord  Chancellor,  Mr. 
Justice  Denham's  anecdote  of, 

351 

Canada,  Alaskan  Boundary  dis- 
pute,26o-29i ;  bitterness  against 
Lord  Alverstone  in,  270-273; 
talk  of  annexation,  277-283; 
two  Governors-general,  284- 
291;  immigration  of  Americans 
into,  277-278;  Roman  Catho- 
licism in,  261;  sensitive  feeling 
in,  284 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of, emolu- 
ments and  palaces  of,  389-390; 
position  and  career  of,  39 1-393  '■> 
impressions  of  392-393;  friend- 
ship   of    Queen    Victoria    for, 

393-394 
Carrington,  Lady,  282 
Cavendish,  Lord  F.,  255 
Chamberlain,  Mr.,  skirmish  with 

Lord    R.    Churchill,    318-319; 

Imperialism     of,     281;     meets 

Prince  of  Wales  and  German 

Emperor    on    board    Teutonic, 

424-425 
Chandler,  Zach,  defeat  of  Dana 

engineered  by,  49 
Chelmsford,  Lord,  247 
Choate,  J.  H.,  Minister  to  Eng- 


Index 


433 


Choa  te — Continued 

land,    50;    qualities    of,    as    a 
Minister,  210-21 1 

Choate,  Rufus,  96;  anecdotes  of, 
27 

Churchill,  Lady  Randolph,  social 
miracle  performed  by,  373-374 

Churchill,  Lord  Randolph,  an 
appreciation  of,  332-333;  fric- 
tion with  Prince  Bismarck, 
324-325;  skirmish  with  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  318-319;  letter 
to  Lady  R.  Churchill,  333; 
drive  with,  322-323;  his  views 
of  Mr.  Gladstone,  324-325; 
Gladstone's  remark  on,  333; 
"I  forgot  Goschen, "  322;  as  a 
host,  325-326;  last  meetingwith, 
331-332;  his  indifference  to 
money,  327-331;  his  concep- 
tion of  the  political  future, 
319-320;  his  use  of  the  Press, 
327-328;  his  investment  in  the 
Rand  mines,  331;  speeches  of, 
321;  contest  with  Lord  Salis- 
bury, 321;  his  opinion  of  the 
working    man,    328-329 

Churchill,  Winston,  his  biography 
of  his  father,  329;  compared 
with  his  father,  319;  position 
of,  in  political  life,  253,  319; 
stipend  of,  390 

Clark,  Sir  Andrew,  anecdote  of, 
362-363 ;  physician  to  Mr. 
Gladstone,  362 

Clarke,  General  Sir  Stanley,  con- 
stant attendance  of,  on  Prince 
of  Wales  at  Homburg,  410 

Clay,  Henry,  5 

Cleveland,  President,  anecdote  of, 
16;  political  pressure  on,  208; 
part  played  by,  during  Vene- 
zuela crisis,  75-79 

Cluseret,  "General,"  133 

Coleridge,  Emerson's  friendship 
with,  59 

Collier,  Price,  mischievous  dictum 
of,  202,  289,  354 

Collins,  Patrick,  enmity  of,  to 
E.  J.  Phelps,  208 

Curzon,  Lord,  epigram  of,  131 


D 


Daily  News,  The,  formerly  mouth- 


piece of  Nonconformist  Liberal- 
ism, 229;  exploits  of  Archibald 
Forbes  in  service  of,  247-250; 
connection  of,  with  Tribinie, 
235,  236,  245,  246;  news  alli- 
ance formed  with  Tribune, 
224-227;  I  bring  Mr.  White's 
account  of  Spicheren  to,  232- 

234 

Dalhousie,  Lady,  visit  to,  395-401 

Dalhousie,  Lord,  350,  395-401 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  influence  of, 
131,  279;  journalistic  relations 
with,  129-130;  connection  of, 
with  Tribune,  153 

Dana,  Daniel,  41 

Dana,  Francis,  41 

Dana,  Paul,  editor  of  Sun,  279; 
founds  society  to  promote  an- 
nexation of  Canada,  279 

Dana,  Richard,  41 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  41 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  Jr.,  an- 
cestry, 41;  anecdotes  of,  45-48; 
my  acquaintance  with,  43-48; 
introduces  me  to  Adams,  196- 
197;  part  played  by,  in  trial  of 
Anthony  Burns,  30-33,  41,  42; 
Butler's  enmity  to,  41,  42;  un- 
founded charge  against,  48; 
visits  House  of  Commons,  46; 
lampooned  by  Phillips,  108; 
qualities  of,  as  a  lawyer,  28,  46, 
47;  his  letters  to  me,  42-43; 
works  of,  42,  216-219 

Davidson,  Rev.  Randall.  See 
Canterbury,   Archbishop  of 

Davics,  F.,  15 

Davis,  Governor,  sobriquet  of,  3 

Davis,  Lieutenant-Governor,  3 

Delane,  Mr.,  48-49 

Denham,  Mr.  Justice,  story  of 
Lord  Chancellor  Campbell,  351 

Depew,  Mr.,  presentation  of,  to 
Prince  of  Wales,  413 

Desclee,  Aimee,  histrionic  gifts 
of,  9 

Detaille,  M.,  421 

Dickens,  Charles,  119 

Draft  Riots,  the,  161-162 

Dudley,   Lady,   397-399 

Dudley,  Lord,  350,  398-399 

Dufferin,  Lord,  anecdote  of,  214 

Dupont.  Admiral,  132 

Durant,  Mr.,  81-83 


434 


Index 


Durham,  Bishop  of,  390 
E 

Edward,  VII.,  King,  Americans 
presented  to,  413-416;  an  appre- 
ciation of,  429-430;  quarrel 
with  Lord  R.  Churchill,  333;  at 
Dunrobin  Castle,  347;  his 
friends  in  France,  421;  his 
share  in  creating  the  Entente 
Cordiale,  419-420;  conversa- 
tion with  Lord  Hartington, 
412;  national  feeling  towards, 
421-422;  his  desire  for  news, 
428-429;  incidents  of  visit  to 
Paris,  420-422 ;  causes  of  popu- 
larity of,  425-427;  cause  of  his 
late  experience  of  public  affairs, 
416-418;  presents  me  to  Crown 
Princess  of  Prussia,  404;  public 
men's  opinions  of,  418-419; 
his  sense  of  social  responsibility, 
427-428;  example  set  by,  to 
foreign  royalty,  425;  stories  pf, 
414-416,  427;  effect  of  in- 
herited traditions  on,  424; 
visits  of,  to  Homburg  and 
Marienbad,    403,    410-416 

Edwards,   Jonathan,   2,    213 

Ellis,  C.  M.,  counsel  for  Anthony 
Burns,  31,  32 

Ely,  Bishop  of,  390. 

Emerson,  Ellen,  61,  65 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  64,  104; 
Matthew  Arnold  on,  51;  in 
Boston,  71-72,  212;  personal 
characteristics  of,  54,  55;  pride 
of  Concord  in,  60-61;  in  Eng- 
land, 62-71;  his  friends,  58-60, 
65 ;  Huxley  on,  62 ;  beloved  by 
London,  218;  as  an  orator,  69- 
70;  replaces  Theodore  Parker, 
69;  from  pulpit  to  platform,  52; 
his  praise  of  Sumner,  i;  visits 
to,  53-60;  on  Daniel  Webster, 
5;  works  of,  52,  66-67,  216 

Emerson,  William,  51,  53 

Emmons,  Rev.  Dr.,  pastor  of 
church  in  Franklin,  i ;  personal 
characteristics  of,  2 

Endicott,  Mr.,  4 

Evarts,  Mr.,  363 

Everett,  Mr.,  I,  4;  speech  of, 
quoted  by  Phillips,  94 


Fay,  Richard  S.,  attempt  of,  to 
crush  anti-slavery  agitation, 
37i  85;  breaking  up  of  Anti- 
Slavery  Convention  by,  92; 
Phillips's  contempt  for,  93 

Felix,  Elizabeth  Rachel,  at  Bos- 
ton Theatre,  9;  friendship  with 
Lord  Glenesk,  342 

Field,  Cyrus,  director  of  Anglo- 
American  Telegraph  Company, 
166 

Fish,  Mr.  Secretary,  205 

Follen,  Charles,  part  played  by, 
in  anti-slavery  riots,  95,  III 

Forbes,  Archibald,  225,  241,  247; 
adventures  of,  in  Russian  and 
Turkish  Unes,  247-249;  journal- 
istic exploits  of,  246-250;  inter- 
view of,  with  Czar,  248-249; 
narrative  of  surrender  of  Metz 
wrongly  attributed  to,  246 

Forster,  John,  129 

Frederick,  Emperor,  403,  405, 
407-408 

Frederick,  Empress,  Bismarck's 
distrust  of,  407;  at  Homburg, 
403-404;  presentation  to,  404- 
408 

Fremont,  General,  nomination  of, 
by  Republican  part>^  85;  for- 
eign adventures  on  staff  of,  a  33 


Galliffet,  Marquis  de.  King  Ed- 
ward's friendship   with,   421 

Gambetta,  comparison  of,  with 
Governor  Andrew,  106;  friend- 
ship of  Prince  of  Wales  with, 
422 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  i,  104; 
character  and  career  of,  113- 
115;  on  Constitution,  116; 
position  of,  in  history,  1 18-120; 
Liberator  founded  by,  113,  Il6- 
118;  Phillips  on  certain  im- 
patiently expressed  opinion  of. 
114-116;  risk  of  assassination 
incurred  by,  39 

Gay,  Sydney  Howard,  connection 
of,  with  Tribune,  129-130,  162: 
sends  me  back  to  the  Army, 
153; report  to,  158-160 


Inde 


X 


435 


Gibson,  Randall,  character  of ,  i8; 
parallel  with  Earl  Spencer,   19 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  119,  254,  256, 
320;  on  Austrian  rule,  200; 
oratorical  powers  of,  45,  70; 
remark  of,  about  Lord  R. 
Churchill,  333;  Lord  R.  Church- 
ill's views  of,  324 

Glenesk,  Lady,  338-340 

Glenesk,  Lord,  293-295;  acquires 
Morning  Post,  335-338;  review 
of  "Lord  Glenesk  and  the 
Morning  Post,"  341-342;  the 
late  Queen's  regard  for  342; 
friendship  of  Rachel  and 
Sarah     Bernhardt  with,  342 

Gourko,  General,  247-248 

Grant,  President,  nominates  Dana 
as  Minister  to  England,  48; 
recalls  Motley,  204-205;  Sum- 
ner's warfare  with,  126 

Grant-Duff,  Sir  Mountstuart, 
Diary  of,  380 

Granville,  Lord,  230 

Gray,  Horace,  wonderful  memory 
of,  80-81 

Greeley,  Horace,  founds  New  York 
Tribune,  117;  his  management 
of  the  Tribune,  130;  remains 
at  his  post  during  the  Draft 
Riots,  162;  Stedman's  monody 
on,  14-15 

Greenwood,  Frederick,  226 

Grey,  Lord,  in  Canada,  282; 
presents  portrait  of  Franklin  to 
Philadelphia,  289-290;  speech 
at  Waldorf  Hotel,  288-289;  re- 
ception at  White  House,  290- 
291 

Grey,  Sir  Charles,  289 

Gull,  Sir  William,  anecdote  of, 
359-360 

H 

Hadley,  Professor,  Hellenism  of, 
20-21 

Halleck,  General,  134 

Ham,  Deputy  Chief  of  Police, 
107,  112;  dexterous  handUng  of 
Boston  mob  by,  96-97 

Hammond,  Lord,  230 

Hancock,  John,  4,  33 

Hardwicke,  Lord,  397-401  ' 

Harper's  Magazine,  my  state- 
ments in,  226,  247 


Harriman,  Mr.,  309,  310 

Hartington,  Marquis  of,  412 

Harvard  University,  12-13,23-28, 
51.213 

Hay,  John,  Mr.,  Minister  to  Eng- 
land, 209-210;  foreign  policy  of, 
when  Secretary  of  State,  209- 
210;  Queen  Victoria's  high 
opinion  of,  210;  United  States 
Secretary  of  State  during 
Alaskan  Boundary  dispute,  260, 
267;  talk  with,  on  the  Boundary 
question,  268-270;  attended 
medically  by  Sir  W.  Broadbent, 
360-361 ;  adroit  diplomatic 
methods  of,  361 

Hayes,  President,  363 

Hayne,  Senator,  Webster's  reply 
to,  8 

Herschell,  Lord,  ultimatum  of, 
275,  276 

Higginson,  Colonel,  35,  216 

Hill,  Mr.  Frank,  editor  of  Daily 
News,  225,  233 

Hindlip,  Lord,  hop-buying  on  a 
gigantic  scale,  350-351 ;  the  beer 
at  Invermark,  351 

Hinton,  Mr.  Phillips  protected 
against  Boston  mob  by,  95-96 

Hoar,  Rockwood,  opposing  coun- 
sel, 79-80;  Emerson's  friend- 
ship with,  60 

Hoar,  Senator,  abilities  and  learn- 
ing of,  3 ;  read  law  with,  24,  29 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  a  Bos- 
tonian,  i,  212;  personal  popu- 
larity of,  amongst  Englishmen, 
218;  popularity  of  works  of,  in 
England,  216 

Hooker,  General,  make  acquaint- 
ance of,  145-146;  carry  order 
for,  at  Antietam,  146;  con- 
versation with,  after  Antietam 
148-149;  fights  battles  of  Chan- 
cellorsville,  155;  comparison 
with  McClellan,  141-142;  sob- 
riquet of,  141-142;  stories  of, 
157-158;  wounded,  147;  offers 
me  place  on  his  staff,  156 

Howe,  Murray,  attack  of,  upon 
Anti-Slavery  Convention  in 
Boston,  86-87,  92 

Howells,  Mr.,  leaves  Boston  for 
New  York,  213;  interpreter  at 
times    between    England    and 


436 


Index 


Howells — Continued 

America,    214;    story    told    of, 

219;  works  of,  215 
Hughes,  Thomas,  author  of  Tom 

Brown's  Schooldays  65;  founder 

of     Working     Men's     College, 

66 
Huntington,  Rev.  Dr.,  Rector  of 

Grace  Church,  N.  Y.,  3 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  meeting  of,  with 

Emerson,    62-63;    visit   of,    to 

Lady  Dalhousie,  400 


Ireland,  Alexander,  biography  of 
Emerson,  64 

Ismay,  Mr.,  meeting  of,  with 
Prince  of  Wales  and  Emperor 
William    on    board     Teutonic, 

J 

Jackson,  Stonewall,  death  of ,  155 

James,    Henry,    bracketed    with 

Mr.  Howells,  219;  popiilarity  of, 

in  England,  219;  worksof,  216- 

217 

Jenner,  Sir  William,  place  of  in 

medical  profession,  359 
Jerome,  Mr.,  Lord  R.  Churchill's 

difference  with,  329-330 
Jersey,  Lady,  373 
Jessel,  Sir  George,  judicial  great- 
ness of,  308 
Jeune,  Mrs.,  See  St.  Helier,  Lady 
Johnson,  President,  126,  164 
Jowett,  Dr.,  epigrams  of,  312 

K 

Kitchener,  Lord,  administrative 
capacitj'^  of,  296;  "if  he  were  a 
Frenchman,"  298;  German 
opinion  of,  292-293;  Gordon 
College,  294-295;  personality 
of,  298;  traits  and  incidents, 
292-300 


Lambton,  Admiral  Sir  Hedworth, 
commands  royal  yacht,  ser- 
vices abroad,  story  told  of, 
347-349 


Laurier,  Sir  Wilfrid,  Alaskan 
Botmdary  dispute,  260-282 ; 
criticism  of  Lord  Alverstone, 
272-273;  talks  on  American 
immigration  into  Canada,  278- 
279;  personal  characteristics, 
261-264;  statesmanlike  views 
of,  274-275;  a  "Warden  of 
Empire,"  260 

Lawrence,  Amos,  hostihty  of  to 
anti-slavery  agitation,  37,  92 

Lawrence,  William  Beach,  48,  49 

Le  Barnes,  Mr.,  protects  Phillips 
against  Boston  mob,   95-96 

Lee,  General  Robert,  battles  of 
Antietam  and  South  Mountain, 
138-143;  generalship  of,  at 
ChancellorsviUe,  155 

Leinster,  Duchess  of,  326 

Leopold,  Prince,  230 

Lewis,  Charlton,  studies  at  Yale, 
versatility  of,  15 

Lewis,  Sir  George,  engaged  in 
famous  cases,  301-304;  honours 
conferred  upon,  302 ;  f riendsliip 
with  King  Edward,  302 ;  law  re- 
forms advocated  by,  307;  prin- 
ciples of  conduct,  304-307;  Lord 
Russell  of  Killowen's  eulogy  of, 
301 ;  social  secrets  entrusted  to, 

305-307 

Lincoln,  Governor,  3 

Lincoln,  Mayor,  99 

Lincoln,  President,  90,  126,  253; 
draft  enforced  by,  37,  161; 
election  of,  followed  by  seces- 
sion of  Southern  States,  107; 
esteem  of,  for  Grant,  158; 
Gettysburg  speech  of,  218 

Lloyd-George,  Mr.,  380,  390 

Lodge,  Senator,  EngUsh  criticism 
of,  273 

Loewe,  Herr,  opposition  of,  to 
Bismarck,  125,  179 

London,  Bishop  of,  390 

Longfellow,  in  Boston,  212;  popu- 
larity of  works  of,  in  England, 
216-218 

Loring,  Judge  Edward  Greeley, 
attempt  of,  to  crush  anti- 
slavery  agitation,  37;  Anthony 
Bums  tried  by,  29-39,  42; 
charged  with  the  death  of 
James  Batchelder,  38 

Lowe,  Mr.,  400 


Index 


437 


Lowell,  Mr.,  attainments  of, 
qualities  of,  as  a  Minister, 
205-207;  in  Boston,  i,  212; 
popularity  personally  and  as  an 
author,  in  England,  216-218 

Lucas,  Reginald,  author  of  Lord 
Glenesk,  and  The  Morning  Post, 

341-344 

M 

McClellan,  General,  generalship 
of,  138-143,  148,  149;  indecision 
of,  149;  his  military  reputation, 
137;    succeeded    by    Burnside, 

155 

Macdonald,  Sir  John,  services  to 
Canada,  264;  compared  with 
Diaz,  264;  political  corruption 
organized  into  a  system  by, 
264-265 

McDowell,   General,   impressions 

of,  133-134 
McGahan,  Mr.,  241 
McKinley,    President,    260,    265, 

267;  talks  with,  on  the  Alaskan 

Boundary    question,    268-270; 

recalls  Mr.  Hay,  209 
MacMahon,  Marshal,  234 
MacVeagh,  Wayne,   offices    held 

by,  16;  conversational  power  of, 

16-17 
Manning,     Cardinal,    speech     to 

dock  strikers,  327-328 
Marlborough,  Duchess  of,  322 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  322 
Meade,  General,  interview  with, 

159-160 
Mejanel,    M.,   correspondent   for 

Tribune      in      Franco-German 

War,     231;     news     of     Sedan 

brought    to     Tribune    London 

office  by,  243-245 
Minto,  Lady,  262 ;  tact  and  felicity 

of,    in    performance    of    social 

functions,  282 
Minto,    Lord,    Governor-General 

of  Canada,  260,  262;  relations 

with  Sir  W.  Laurier,  281-282; 

organizes  Canadian  contingent 

for  South  African  War,  285-288; 

Viceroy  of  India,  284 
Moltke,  General  von,  return  of,  to 

Berlin,  after  Sadowa,  173-174 
Moran,  Mr.,  interview  with,  196 
Morgan,  Pierpont,  309 


Morley,  Lord,  on  President  Roose- 
velt, 343 

Morning  Post,  The,  acquired  by 
Lord  Glenesk,  335;  control  of, 
by  Countess  Bathurst,  340; 
history  of,  334-338;  success- 
fully conducted  by  Oliver 
Borthwick,  340-341 

Morris,  Sir  Henry,  consultation 
with,  355-356;  masterly  skill 
of,  356;  honour  conferred  upon, 

357 

Morris,  Robert,  30 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  Bismarck's 
friendship  with,  201-202;  qual- 
ities and  defects  as  a  diplomat, 
201;  recall  of,  by  President 
Grant,  204-205;  at  the  Athe- 
naeum Club,  during  Civil  War, 
203;  works  of,  200 

Muller,  Gustav,  writes  account  of 
surrender  of  Metz  for  Tribune, 
246-247;  story  of  disappearance 
of,  247 


N 


Napoleon  III,  Emperor,  230,  236 
Newman,  Cardinal,  11 8-1 19 
New  York  Tribune,  The,  founded 
by  Horace  Greeley,  117;  offices 
of,  attacked  during  Draft  Riots, 
161-162;  introduction  to,  129— 
130;  experiences  as  correspon- 
dent in  the  Civil  War,  129-136; 
free  expression  of  unpopular 
views  in,  353;  the  search  for 
a  general,  a  fragment  of  un- 
written history,  153-160;  poems 
of  Stedman  published  in,  14-15; 
causes  of  success  at  beginning 
of  Franco- German  War,  168; 
conversations  with  Bismarck 
reported  in,  121-122,  182-183, 
186;  a  revolution  in  inter- 
national journalism,  220-234; 
arrangement  with  Daily  News, 
224-227;  European  news-bu- 
reau, 252;  cabling  important 
news,  164-165,  167,  242,  245, 
251;  vexatious  restrictions  on 
cables,  165-167;  ultimatum  to 
Mr.  Weaver,  167-169;  account 
of  surrender  of  Metz  hrst  pub- 
lished by  a  correspondent  of. 


438 


Index 


New  York  Tribune — Continued 
246-247;     how     Holt     White's 
story  of  Sedan  reached,  235-242 

Northcliffe,    Lord,    229;   creative 
genius  of,  339 


O 


O'Brien,  William,  256 
Observer,  The,  335 
Ollivier,  Emile,  230 
Olney,  Richard,  part  played  by, 
during  Venezuela  crisis,  75-79 
O'Rell,  Max,  29 
Otis,  4,  33 
Oxford,  Bishop  of,  390 


Pall  Mall  Gazette,  The,  contract 
of  Tribune's  war  correspondent 
with,  226-227;  part  of  White's 
story  of  Sedan  published  in, 
241 

Palmerston,  Lady,  373 

Palmerston,  Lord,  195 

Parker,  Judge,  revises  General 
Statutes  of  Massachusetts,  26 

Parker,  Capt.  John,  39 

Parker,  Theodore,  discourse  on 
death  of  Webster,  8;  speech  at 
Abolitionist  meeting  at  Faneuil 
Hall,  33-34;  sermon  on  surren- 
der of  Anthony  Burns,  38-39; 
attainments  and  training  of, 
39-40;  replaced  during  illness 
by  Emerson  and  Phillips,  69; 
quashing  of  indictment  of,  108; 
greatest  force  in  American 
pulpit,  212 

Parsons,  Theophilus,  colleague  of 
Judge  Parker,  26 

Pattison,  Rev.  Mark,  310 

Pauncefote,  Lord,  210 

Perkins,  Mr.,  331 

Peyronnet,  Mile.  de.  .See  Russell, 
Lady  Arthur 

Peyrormet,  Vicomte  de,  379 

Phelps,  Mrs.,  207 

Phelps,  E.  J.,  American  Minister 
to  England,  English  regard 
for,  49;  effect  of  enmity  of  Pat 
Collins  on  career  of,  208 

Phelps,    W.    W.,    friendship    of 


Bismarck's  family   with,    184- 

185 

Philip,  Admiral,  memorable  say- 
ing of,  at  Santiago,  142 

PhilUps,  Wendell,  i ;  leader  of  Anti- 
Slavery  Party  in  Boston,  104- 
106,  113,  121;  risks  assassina- 
tion, 39;  defends  Anthony 
Burns,  31;  on  "Broadcloth 
mob,"  86;  letter  to,  and  in- 
terviews with,  87-91;  experi- 
ences with,  during  Boston  riot, 
96-103;  on  Butler's  "Contra- 
band of  War"  phrase,  132; 
lampoons  Dana,  108;  rebukes 
impatiently  expressed  opinion 
of  Garrison,  115;  oratorical 
power  of,  213;  replaces  Theo- 
dore Parker,  69;  on  religious 
influences,  11-12;  speeches  of, 
8.  91-93.  107.  110-112;  argu- 
ments inducing  him  to  support 
the  war,  108-112;  on  George 
W^ashington,  7 

Pierce,  Franklin,  84 

Plimsoll,  S.,  203-204 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  216 

Poole,  Mr.  Reginald,  303 

Pope,  General,  demoraUzation  of 
army  of,  137;  conversation 
with,  134;  personal  character- 
istics of,  134;  qualities  as  a 
leader,  134-135;  a  surprise 
when    reconnoitring,  135-136 

Porter,  Professor,  character  and 
influence  of,  20-23 

Potter,  Bishop,  392 


R 


Rachel.  See  Felix,  Elizabeth 
Rachel 

Ralli,  Mr.,  293 

Reay,  Lord,  380 

Redpath,  Mr.,  95-96 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  217,  309 

Remond,  Charles  Lenox,  7 

Renan,  M.,  lectures  of,  in  Lon- 
don, meetings  with,  386-387 

Robinson,  Sir  John,  reluctance 
of,  to  exchange  news  with 
Tribune,  225-226;  Mr.  White's 
account  of  Spicheren,  232-233; 
gives  me  first  news  of  French 
catastrophe     at     Sedan,     236; 


Index 


439 


Robinson — Continued 

does  not  explain  his  indebted- 
ness to  Tribune  for  account 
of  surrender  of  Metz,  246 

Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia,  Due  de 
la,  entertains  Prince  of  Wales, 
421 

Rodgers,  Captain  Raymond,  132 

Rodin,  M.,  421 

Roon,  General  von,  173-174,  179- 
180 

Roosevelt,  President,  265;  friend- 
ship of  Lady  St.  Helier  with, 
376;  reception  at  White  House 
of  Oliver  Borthwick,  343-344; 
of  Lord  Grey,  289-291;  Lord 
Morley's  remark  on,  343 

Rosebery,  Lord,  remark  of  Lord 
R.  Churchill  to,  332;  intimacy 
of,  with  King  Edward,  418; 
his  opinion  of  oratory  of  E.  J. 
Phelps,  208 

Rothschild,  Lord,  332 

Roundell,  Charles,  380 

Russell,  Lady  Arthur,  French 
origin  of,  379;  her  salon,  384; 
distinguished  people  at  recep- 
tions of,  386-388 

Russell,  Lord  Arthur,  379-385 

Russell,  Hastings.  See  Bedford, 
Duke  of 

Russell,  Lord  John,  195 

Russell,  Lord  Odo.  See  Ampthill, 
Lord 

Russell,  W.  H.,  134,  241;  exposes 
mismanagement  of  War  Office, 
227 

Rutson,  Albert,  380 


St.  Helier,  Lady,  anecdotes  of, 
375-376;  at  Arlington  Manor, 
377-378;  friendship  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt  with,  376;  distinc- 
tion of,  as  a  hostess,  371-373; 
influence  of  on  Society,  372-378 

St.  Helier,  Lord,  364-365;  friend- 
ship of  Lord  Beaconsfield  with, 
368;  on  King  Edward,  418; 
President    of    Divorce    Court, 

369 

Salisbury,  Bishop  of,  390 
Salisbury,   Marquis  of,  on  King 


Edward,  418;  part  played  by, 

during  Venezuela  crisis,  77 
Sanbornc,  Frank,  86 
Schenck,  General,  48 
Scudamore,  Mr.,  168-169 
Sedgwick,  General,  battles  fought 

by, 149-150,  157,  159; character 

of,   149-150 
Seward,  Mr.,  195 
Shadrach     Case,     effect    of,     on 

opinion  in  Massachusetts,  30, 

36  .  . 

Shaw,  Chief  Justice,  at  trial  of 
Anthony  Burns,  31,  47;  head 
of  judiciary  of  his  state,  212 

Sherman,  General  T.  W.,  132 

Shiras,  Mr.  Justice,  15 

Sims  Case,  effect  of,  on  opinion  in 
Massachusetts,  30,  36 

Smalley,  Rev.  Mr.,  colleague  of 
Dr.  Emmons,  2 ;  passes  to  First 
Presbyterian  Church  at  Troy  2 ; 
death  of,  2;  liberalism  of,    12 

Smith,  George,  owner  of  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,  226 

Smith,  Goldwin,  263 

Smith,  Dr.  William,  64 

Smith-Barry,  Mr.,  plan  of  cam- 
paign, visit  to,  police  protec- 
tion, 257-259 

Spencer,  Earl,  character  of,  com- 
pared   with    Randall    Gibson, 

19 

Spencer,  Herbert,  120,  380 
Stanley,  Dean,  on  J.  L.  Motley, 

204 
Stanley,    Mrs.     See    St.    Helier, 

Lady 
Stanton,  E.  M.,  134,  138 
Steadman,  Commodore,   131 
Stedman,  poet  and  critic,  writes 
John     Brown     of     Osawatomie 
and     Monody     on     death     of 
Horace  Greeley,  14 
Steevens,  G.  W.,  241 
Stephen,  Mr.  Justice,  375 
Sumner,  Charles,  one  of  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Anti-Slavery  Party, 
121;     assaulted     by     Preston 
Brooks,   84;    effect   of   the  as- 
sault,   126-127;    conversations 
with,  121-122,  126-128;  Emer- 
son's eulogy  on,  i;  high  ideals 
of,  128;  journey  to  Paris,  127- 
128;    Motley    recalled   because 


440 


Index 


Sumner —  Continued 

of  his  relations  with,  205;  char- 
acteristic speech  of,  122-123; 
cause  of  unpopularity  in  Eng- 
land, 125 

Sun,  The,  annexation  of  Canada 
preached  by,  278-279 

Sutherland,  Duke  of,  347 

Suttle,   Colonel,   Anthony   Burns 
surrendered  to,  29,  36 


Taft,  President,  what  he  accom- 
plished as  Civil  Governor  of 
the  Philippines,  296-297 

Taylor,  ZacharJ^  political  rela- 
tions of  Daniel  Webster  with, 

4.  5 
Thacher,  Professor,  irtfluence  of, 

in  Yale  University,  20 
Thomas,     Judge,     anecdote     of, 

74-75;     takes    Richard    Olnej' 

into  his  office,  75-79 
Thoreau,   friendship  of  Emerson 

with,  59 
Times,  The,  appeals  to  a  special 

class,    335;    George    Brodrick, 

leader  writer  for,  382-383;  Lord 

R.  Churchill  gives  first  news  of 

his  resignation  to,  327;  a  free 

hand    in    treating    Cleveland's 

message  of  war  in  1895,  353; 

Dr.    Russell   exposes    blunders 

of  War  Office  in,  227 
Tocqueville,     author    of     De    la 

Democratie  en  Amerique,   66 
Trevelyan,  Sir  George,  meetings 

with,  254-256 
Turner,  Senator,  273 
Twain,  Mark,  presented  to  Prince 

of     Wales — impressions     made 

by,  364-5 


Victoria,  Princess,  393 

Victoria,  Queen,  life  in  the  High- 
lands— etiquette  at  Balmoral, 
345-346;  resemblance  to  Em- 
press Frederick — indifference  to 
dress,  404-405;  national  feeling 
towards,  423;  visits  Invercauld 


House,     346;     relations     with 
Prince  of  Wales,  416-418 

W 

Waldeck-Rousseau,  M.,  relations 
of,  with  Prince  of  Wales,  422 

Ware,  Fabian,  editor  of  Morning 
Post,  340 

Washburn,  Governor,  3 

Weaver,  Mr.,  manager  of  Anglo- 
American  Telegraph  Company, 
165-166;  uncertain  transmission 
of  cabled  news  under  regime 
of,  237,  239-240;  ultimattun  to, 
167-169 

Webster,  Daniel,  leader  of  the 
American  Bar,  27;  Emerson 
on,  5;  effect  of  his  support  of 
Fugitive  Slave  Act,  7;  com- 
parison with  Gladstone,  6; 
influence  of,  213;  his  eulogy  of 
Massachusetts,  i,  2;  his  mas- 
terpieces as  an  advocate  and 
orator,  8,  9;  Wendell  Phillips 
on  pro-slaver^'  views  of,  8; 
personal  magnetism  of,  9,  10; 
his  political  support  of  Taylor, 
4,  5;  "room  at  the  top,"  367 

Welles,  Mr.,  131 

West,  Mrs.  George  Cornwallis. 
See   Churchill,  Lady  Randolph 

White,  Andrew,  public  offices 
held  by,  16 

White,  Holt,  correspondent  of 
Tribune,  231-234;  brings  story 
of  Sedan  to  Tribune  London 
office,  236-242;  his  story  of 
Spicheren,  232-234 

Whiteside,  Solicitor-General,  46 

Whitman,  Sidney,  185 

Whitman,  Walt,  216, 218 

Wightman,  Mayor  of  Boston, 
action  of,  during  Boston  riot, 
99-102;  incompetency  of,    103 

William  II,  Emperor,  visits  S.S. 
Teutonic,  424-425 

Wilson,  General,  conversation 
with,  147-148 

Wilson,  Henry,  effect  of  his  elec- 
tion as  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 84 

Winthrop,  connection,  of  with 
Boston,   4 


Index 


441 


Wolff,  Sir  H.  D.,  intimacy  of  Lord 

R.  Churchill  with,  326 
Wolseley,  Rev.  Dr.,  President  of 

Yale  University,  13 


Yale     University,     distinguished 
alumni  of,   13-19;  rigid  disci- 


pline at,  24;  eminent  professors 
in,  20-28;  sectional  antagonism 
in,  25-26;  theological  atmo- 
sphere of,  13 
Young,  John  Russell,  succeeds 
Gay  as  managing  editor  of 
Tribune,  163;  adopts  sugges- 
tion to  establish  Tribune  office 
in  London,  220-221 


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Peterhouse 


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14  Volumes,  Royal  8vo,  of  about  600  pages  each. 
Price  per  volume,  $2.50  net 

Subscriptions  received  for  the  complete  work  at  $31.50  net, 
payable  at  the  rate  of  $2.25  on  the  notification  of  the  pub- 
lication of  each  volume. 

Vol.      I.  From  the  Beginning  to  the  Cycles  of  Romance. 

Vol.    II.  The  End  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Vol.  III.  Renascence  and  Reformation. 

Vol.  IV.  From  Sir  Thomas  North  to  Michael  Drayton. 

Vol.   V.  The  Elizabethan  and  the  Jacobean  Drama.       I. 

Vol.  VI.  The  Elizabethan  and  the  Jacobean  Drama.     II. 

Some  Comments 

"  The  editors  of  this  volume  .  .  .  have  produced  a  book 
which  is  indispensable  to  any  serious  student  of  English  litera- 
ture. The  individual  articles  are  in  several  instances  contribu- 
tions of  great  value  to  the  discussion  of  their  subjects,  and  one  of 
them  is  of  first-rate  importance  in  English  literary  history." 

Atkensum, 

"Specialization  has  left  the  detail  of  this  volume,  almost 
without  exception,  quite  irreproachable  and  masterly ;  a  fine 
editorial  sagacity  has  robbed  specialization  of  its  selfishness  and 
secured  a  cumulative  effect  of  remarkable  assonance  and  dignity. 
Of  the  deep  need  for  such  an  enterprise  as  this  there  was  never 
any  question;  that  it  would  certainly  achieve  a  strong  success  the 
reception  accorded  the  first  volume  made  entirely  clear." — Liver- 
pool  Courier. 

Send  for  descriptive  circular 


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